Many years ago, I worked on a remodeling crew in SW Oklahoma. We stripped an old house down to the studs to start over with a new interior and exterior. The house was built differently than the ones today. This house had 1 X 12 ship lathe boards set at an angle on the outside of the house. It was like whole walls of wind braces. Then, the inside of the house, nailed to the exterior studs, was a 1 x 12 ship lathe nailed horizontal. Over that was a layer of oil cloth to keep the wind out and then it had been upgraded to two layers of sheetrock. The house was built like a tank.

Interestingly, the studs were made of first-growth, virgin rough-cut pine. Those studs were hard as a rock. Very dense.

The Weyerhaeuser Company owns much timber in SE Oklahoma. They used to clear-cut the trees in large areas, and then I believe they went back and planted new pine saplings in the clear-cut areas.

In the book, Same as Ever, the author explains that these virgin trees sprouted up underneath the canopy that dropped the seeds. These new trees grew very slowly as they had little access to sunlight. So, they grew slowly and very dense since the growth was slow. Whereas trees that have full access to sunlight grow quickly, but they also have very soft wood.  Slow and dense makes much better wood for building than fast and soft.

So, it is in many areas of life. God cautions us against being hasty or in a hurry to be rich. His Word says that the diligent will have plenty.

There are a great many get-rich-quick programs out there. Flipping real estate, setting appointments, buying apartments, tax liens, playing the lottery, and day trading to name a few. Have you ever met anyone that got rich quickly with any of these programs? Mostly it is the one selling the programs that are getting rich. They are appealing to our greed or fear. Most want the money but don’t want to work hard for it, and they want it quickly.

Proverbs 20:21  An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.

An inheritance gotten quickly is not much different than winning a lottery or scoring it big on a get-rich-quick scheme. In the end, you will not be blessed. Some have said they wish they had never won the lottery because it destroyed their family. They had not had the slow growth of learning how to handle money properly.

Most people who are truly wealthy have learned the fundamentals of wealth. They don’t allow it to go to their head and cause them great grief like the next verse says.

Proverbs 28:22  He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.

In the area of money, it takes time to lay a good set of fundamentals for your finances.

1. First — learn to be a giver.
2. Second — learn to save.
3. Third — learn to invest.

Once you have these fundamentals going on a regular basis, then you need to rise up to the next level. Learn how to manage the small amount of savings that you have. Each level may take some time to get firmly established in your life. Find something to invest your savings in and study that area until you know it well. Find a good mentor in that field that has good Christian principles and learn from them. Or get some good books on the subject.

We have found that as we get accustomed to each new level of growth in our understanding of finances, we eventually see there is another level we need to put under our belts. It is like peeling back an onion. Each layer peeled reveals another one underneath. Remember to be diligent and study and not hasty to learn.

For example, once we started to save money, we learned that we needed to assign some of that money to certain jobs. Some is saved for retirement, and some is saved in funding accounts for future purchases like vehicle replacement, gifts, appliance replacement, emergency funding, or vacations.  We call these accounts funding accounts and not savings because we are only saving to spend down the road. We are funding future purchases rather than putting them on credit cards or borrowing.

As we saved more, we divided the saved money up further. Recently we started keeping a journal on cash we have saved — where it came from and where it is spent. This gives us a current total without recounting it, and it reminds us of what we spent it on and where it came from.

Also, we had a small investment that was growing, and we saved cash in that same account. Eventually, we could not tell if the investment was growing or was the account growing because of the cash we saved. We divided it into two accounts. Now, we can see exactly what we have saved and how our investment is growing.

If you want to build lifelong success, you need to start thinking in terms of months and years. The growth of wealth is solid if you are diligent. Improve your skills every day. Grow in skills with your investments and your business.

As you do this you will compound your dollars. Slow and steady — learning as your wealth grows and compounds, you will be like the hard dense virgin cut pine, not the soft wood that grew quickly. Your growth will be solid as a rock and not easily washed away.

Proverbs 21:5  The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want.

Slow and Steady is The Prosperous Life.