The Rich Man's Wealth Is a Strong City in His Own Conceit

A man told me he checks his account four times a day and could not tell me why.

Not because he is near the edge. That was the strange part. He said if he was near the edge it would make sense, and he has been near the edge, years ago, and back then he checked it less.

Now there is enough in it. And he looks at it in the morning, and at lunch, and somewhere in the afternoon, and again in bed at about eleven, and he told me he could not name one decision he had ever made as a result of the eleven o'clock check.

I asked him what he was looking for. He thought about it a long time, which I liked him for, and then he said: I think I am checking whether I am alright.

I know that check. Mine was a different number. For years mine was a diary, and how far ahead it was filled, and I would look at it last thing at night the way a man looks at a lock he has already checked.

And I want to say the thing that I know somebody needs said first: there is nothing wrong with money and there is nothing wrong with looking at it. Scripture is not squeamish about it. What Scripture is precise about is what a number can hold, and it says so in a proverb that most people only ever hear half of.

The three words at the end of the wall

Here is the verse, and the whole thing is in the last phrase.

The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit. (Proverbs 18:11, King James Version)

In his own conceit. In his own imagination. In his head.

Solomon is not saying money is worthless. He is a wealthy man writing about wealth and he is not embarrassed about it anywhere else. He is saying something narrower and much more useful: the wall is real as a wall, and it is a fortress only in the mind of the man standing behind it.

Which is exactly right, and anybody who has had a serious number and then had a serious problem knows it. The number does a great many things. It does not do the thing a person is asking it to do at eleven at night.

You are not asking the wrong question when you check it, and Scripture never says you are. Proverbs 18:11 leaves the wall standing as a wall and only moves the word fortress. It is His Spirit, John 14:26 named as the Comforter, who does the comforting that arithmetic cannot.

The verse immediately before it is the punchline

Solomon does something on purpose here that gets lost when the verses are read separately, and it is one of the sharpest things in the book.

The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. (Proverbs 18:10)

Read them in order. Verse 10: the name of the LORD is a strong tower. Verse 11: the rich man's wealth is a strong city, in his own conceit.

Same picture, twice, back to back, and the second one has a qualifier the first one does not. That is not an accident of editing. That is a man setting two towers beside each other and telling you which one holds.

Notice also what the righteous man does with the real tower. He runs into it. It is not admired from a distance and it is not checked four times a day. It is entered.

You have a tower you can run into rather than a wall you have to keep measuring. Proverbs 18:10 makes the name something entered rather than something inspected, and it is the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:15 who cries Abba in a person, who is named as the one who does the crying when a man runs.

Paul says the same thing to rich people, gently

There is an instruction in Paul that is aimed directly at people with money, and the striking thing about it is how kind it is.

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. (1 Timothy 6:17)

Two things there that people miss.

First, uncertain. That is the whole objection. Not evil. Not dirty. Uncertain, which is a factual description of every number that has ever existed, and it is the reason checking it never settles anything: an uncertain thing cannot deliver certainty, however often you look at it.

Second, and this is the part that surprises people who expect the Bible to be grim about this: who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. Paul, in the middle of correcting rich people, stops to say that God is the one handing out the enjoying. That is not a man with a problem about money.

You have been given things to enjoy, and Scripture says that in the same breath as the correction. 1 Timothy 6:17 puts enjoyment in God's hands rather than in guilt's. It is the same Spirit, Galatians 5:22 naming joy among His fruit, who supplies enjoying that a balance has never once produced.

What the eleven o'clock check is actually asking

Here is what I worked out about my diary, years later, and it took a bad year to see it.

I was not checking the bookings. I was asking a question, and the question was: is tomorrow going to be alright? And the diary was the only thing in the house that would answer, so I asked it, and it always gave me the same answer, which was a partial answer, which is why I had to ask again in the morning.

Jesus talks about the question directly, and He does not answer it the way anybody wants.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:34)

He does not say tomorrow will be fine. Read it again: He says the day has enough in it. He is not making a promise about the future. He is taking tomorrow off your plate tonight, which is a different and much more practical mercy.

You have been released from carrying tomorrow at eleven o'clock at night. Matthew 6:34 hands the morrow back to itself rather than guaranteeing what is in it. It is the Spirit of God, John 16:13 who shows things to come as He will, who holds the part nobody can see.

And if the checking has stopped being a habit and started being something heavier, say it to a person and not only to a page: a doctor, a counselor, a pastor you trust, or the 988 crisis line, which answers every hour there is. Anxiety that keeps a man awake is not a spiritual failing. It is a weight, and weights get shared.