The Millionaire Who Lived on Minimum Wage

In the early 1990s, Rich Mullins was one of the most successful artists in Christian music. His song Awesome God became an anthem sung in churches across the world. Royalty checks poured in — enough for a comfortable life many times over.

Mullins never saw those checks. He instructed his church's bookkeeper to pay him whatever the average American worker earned that year and give the rest away. He didn't want to know how much came in. He didn't want the money to change him.

While Nashville offered him spotlight and luxury, Mullins moved to a trailer on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, where he taught music to children. He owned almost nothing. Friends remember him walking barefoot, playing his hammered dulcimer for kids who had never heard anyone write a song about them before.

When asked why he lived this way, Mullins said he was afraid that wealth would make him deaf to the voice of God. He chose smallness because he believed that was where the Almighty did His finest work.

Sacrifice is not always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like a man quietly signing away a fortune so his hands stay open. Sometimes it looks like choosing a dirt road over a red carpet because you trust that El Shaddai has already given you everything that matters.

Paul wrote, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). Rich Mullins lived those words out loud — one unsigned royalty check at a time.