Keeping Up With the Joneses

According to a new study, money can buy you happiness...sort of.

The study, presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting this week, shows that money is a factor in determining a person's happiness, but it is relative wealth, not absolute wealth, that makes the difference. Of the 20,000 people surveyed, those who earned $20,000 more than their peer group were found to be roughly 10 percent more likely to be happy than those who made $20,000 less than their peer group. In other words, actual gross earnings are not as important as making more money than your peers.

Glenn Firebaugh, a co-author of the study, noted that keeping up with our peers puts wage-earners on an income "treadmill," where no amount of money seems to be enough. So while some degree of happiness can be bought, true contentment must come from elsewhere.

King Solomon learned the hard way how futile a pursuit of happiness through riches can be (Ecc. 2:1-11). In the end it was "vanity and a striving after the wind." Agur compares covetousness with the appetites of leeches, the grave, barren wombs, parched deserts, and unquenchable fire (Prov. 30:15-16). Greed has an insatiable appetite.

Happiness cannot be bought. On the contrary, no one is truly content until he resigns himself to the fact that money will never satisfy (Prov. 30:7-9; 1 Tim. 6:6-8). The human spirit craves more than earthly possessions--it needs spiritual wealth. Only Jesus can provide these riches (Eph. 1:3), and when we lay up treasures in heaven, we can be content no matter what the circumstances may be (Phil. 4:11-13).