And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, `What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
"Then he said, `This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
20 "But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
21 "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." Luke12:16-21
This is not a comfortable parable.
It confronts one of the basic pillars of society:
The pursuit of success.
Jesus makes it clear: The _ground_ of a rich man produced a good crop.
The rich man didn't produce it - it was a blessing logically resulting from good soil, good weather, good rain and the absence of pestilence. In other words, the rich man's bounty was the result of Divine Providence.
The man is arrogant. He thinks he is self-sufficient, self-contained, self-fulfilling. He thinks he has it all together: Look at the number of times he refers to himself in 17-19. It's "I" and "my" all the way through it.
The building of barns and storing of goods isn't the real problem. The real problem is the self-centered independence that excludes gratitude and dependence on God.
Recently I was listening to the stunning album by Louis Brittz, Retief Burger and friends ("In Verwondering") where they point out that even the breath that we use to sing praises comes from God.
The rich man has lost perspective: He places himself at the centre of his world. He has plenty of things that will not last, but at his death someone else will receive it. What has he stored up for eternity??
What is your attitude? Are you aware that the very breath that you breathe to succeed comes from Him? Is there a sense of dependence and gratitude? Are you frantically collecting stuff that won't last?
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
