A Rich, Comfortable Life
Jesus tells the story of a rich man whose land was fertile and yielded an abundant harvest. He did so well for himself that he didn’t even have enough room to store all of his harvest. To solve the problem, he decided to pull down his barns and build new, larger ones and store his grain in them. His plan was to then spend his life at ease, eating, drinking and being merry. It might seem like a good, comfortable, sensible plan on the surface, but God calls him a fool!
“You fool! This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will own what you have accumulated?”
Jesus so wonderfully summarises this story by saying:
“What does a man gain if he has the whole world but loses his own soul? …So it is with the one who continues to lay up and hoard possessions for himself and is not rich in his relation to God.”1
Don’t be Foolish
Accumulating goods, making plans without seeking His plans, going our own way without Him, and finding security in life without God is foolish in God’s eyes. Only when we find courage and humility to acknowledge Him and have respect for His ways do we begin to walk in wisdom and the greatest courage of all.
What if you have already turned to face your Creator? Perhaps life will be easier now? Perhaps there will be less problems and less need to muster up the courage to face life, persevere and find our way through? I wish that was true! However, life and people are imperfect and have a way of creating problems with or without God.
Unknown Deliverances
At times, even as believers, serious problems or even debilitating traumas, loss and grief can make us wonder if life is worth living. When we feel that way, firstly we need to remember that while our problems can loom like mountains in our eyes, we just don’t know what problems and troubles God may have delivered us from that we will never encounter. We cannot always see where His grace and mercy may have spared us.
Mugged in China
After a few years working in China, we moved to Thailand for some months. While the rest of the family stayed in Thailand, Stuart made a trip back to China where we still had a property. One evening, he was taking a short-cut from the city centre back home, along an earth path by the side of a rubbish-strewn gully of water at the back of houses. We and others took this route regularly into the city, either walking or on bicycle. On this day, Stuart walked home, carrying in his bum-bag his passport, work permit, flight tickets for Thailand, and a large sum of money he had withdrawn from a bank to pay our Chinese helper.
Suddenly he heard the sound of running behind him and barely had a chance to turn round when he was surrounded by several thugs wielding long-blade knives. After a few seconds of making their demands, they used one of the knives to slit the strap of the leather bum-bag. They took all the money and ran off, throwing down the bum-bag which still contained all his valuable and essential documents.
The children and I could hardly believe it when he telephoned and told us what had happened. We had never had problems with crime like that before in several years of living in China. Stuart was shaken, but safe. We were so relieved that all those important documents had not been stolen, but were even more glad he escaped with his life and no injuries.
Appreciating the Gift of Life
We shouldn’t take life for granted. Life is a gift. It’s the most precious gift there could ever be. It is given to you by the Life Giver. He wants you to open the gift and enjoy living it with Him. Don’t take it for granted when you do not know what a day may bring. Don’t let it slip away in anxiety, fear and hopelessness. Don’t let the challenges and difficulties, the discouragement and despair steal your life from you. You are too precious for that. You are worth more than that. You are God’s work of art. He has a plan and He wants to give you the courage to live out that plan, and live out the life He has given you with hope, purpose and meaning.2
1 Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36
2 Excerpt taken from Michelle’s book, Take Courage: Finding Courage in God to Live, 2022 (https://amzn.to/3DyGuov)
(Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash)