“Then (Jesus) spoke a parable to them, saying, ‘The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he though within himself, saying, “What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?” So he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.’” But God said to him, Fool! This night your soul will be required of you . . . .’” (Luke 12:16-20, NKJV)
Last night we watched the movie, The Marathon Man, about a shrewd survivor of WWII who was trying to get his hands on millions of dollars worth of diamonds in a New York safety deposit box. He risked his life to get the gems, and when he finally opened the box, he spilled them out on the table and gloried in them. This was an elderly man, not many years left to his life. (It turned out to be only hours.) He was guilty of war crimes and had been recognized minutes before in the largely Jewish community where he had tried to find out how much those stones were worth. He was a marked man. What possible good would all those diamonds do for him?
The segment with him fawning over the gems was almost a cartoon depicting greed and the foolishness that overwhelms those caught in it. This man could not see the folly of his obsession. All he could see were dollar signs. In the end, his grasping for the glitter caused him to fall on his own knife. He never enjoyed being very, very rich.
I’m not rich. We have enough, actually too much. I’ve been giving things away for some time. After a while, accumulation becomes a boat anchor, robbing life of the freedom of simplicity. Too much stuff equals complication.
I didn’t always feel like this. When I was younger, I wanted at least a big house, and thought about the ‘freedom’ of being able to buy anything I wanted. Yet I soon realized that the delight in a new purchase lasts about as long as the first time you have to clean it, repair it, even find a spot to put it. Money and stuff do not guarantee “eat, drink, and be merry” and “eat, drink, and be merry” do not guarantee satisfaction. As some kids have to touch the stove to learn that it is hot, I had to learn from both having and not having that neither one have anything to do with being joyful and contented.
The secret of both is the presence in my life of the most joyful and contented person who ever lived. When He is smiling, I can’t help it; I must smile too. When He is happy, His joy spills over into me. When He says, “I’ve got it under control,” every anxiety vanishes. A suitcase full of diamonds could never begin to match what I have in Jesus Christ.
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