The Rich Fool

The Rich Fool

I was reading my daughter a bedtime story a few nights ago.  She loves to hear stories from her “God book” (Stories Jesus Told by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen).  We flipped through and stopped to read the Parable of the Rich Farmer which is based on Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:16-21.

For days later, the story has kept coming back to me and I have been trying to work out what I should take out of it.

¹⁶And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive.

¹⁷“And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’

¹⁸“Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

¹⁹‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”‘

²⁰“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’

²¹“So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Taken literally, the story is a warning against building up and storing away all our worldly treasures when we could drop dead at any second.  We should be applying our earthly resources more to the things of God which will bring change that is not temporary, but everlasting.  We should be living for the here and now and not worrying about the future.

I am not putting large amounts of money away every month because we don’t have it.  My only financial safety net for the future is a (weak) personal pension that I contribute to back in the UK.  It’s not quite the barn described in this story.  So, what else could the barn represent?

The Rich Fool

It could represent personal dreams and ambitions.  I might not have anything to put in my barn yet, but if I’m busy designing my barn for that one day when I finally get my breakthrough, I’d be in the same situation as this rich fool.  If I am so focused on my future, how can I be as effective for God as He would like me to be?  I am at major risk of disobeying a command from God that I believe could compromise our current lifestyle or dream future.

But it’s soooo, so easy for me to fall into this line of thinking especially when I have a family and are responsible for their livelihood.  Every financial, or potential life altering decision I make impacts, not only me, but my family also.

There is an amazing truth that has been reinforced to me recently.  God has made us for His purposes.  We were made to worship Him only.  It’s not about us.  It’s not about me, or even my family.  What will happen when we retire, will we all have enough?  The truth is, I don’t know.  All I know is we need to learn to focus more on what God is doing and what God wants to do, not what we are doing and what we want to do.  Our purpose is to worship God and point people to Him.

It’s been great talking over this with my wife Liz and thinking of how, as a family, we need to approach life differently based on this parable.  We need to keep thinking how can we invest more in Kingdom projects and continually put our future in God’s hands.  We’re more valuable than birds, right?