The Importance of Riches

Luke 12:15-21 NIV:
Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”    And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.  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 my surplus grain.  And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’     “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?’     “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

What a life! What a waste! What a loss of focus and a lack of priorities. The world has its standards- it measures success on numerical or quantifiable basis: how much money you have in your bank account; how many cars or houses you own; how much you pay for rent or school fees for the children. Life has become a comparative race, where everyone wants to be like the other person, not caring too much about how that other person came to be how he/she is. We measure ourselves mentally and physically, trying to outdo each other in displays of wealth, wisdom and power. We forget that like Einsten once said in paraphrase: the things that count cannot always be counted in terms of numbers, while what can be counted doesn't always count.
The story above is a lesson in the right priorities: a man who planted crops got a rich harvest. He had no power over the seeds or their capacity to bear fruits. He could not determine beforehand  which ones carried the potential of increase. He just planted all and waited. At the appointed time, the seeds bore fruits: fruits he had no control over, fruits he could determine how they came about. Yet, in 2-3 verses, he assumed total dominance over everything he could see. The word I  was used up to 5 times in those few verses. Where was the place of God or the place of the grace of God and his provision and provenance? Was there anything he had control over: the planting, the waiting period, the harvest? Could he determine the start or end of anything?
One big lesson: we don't owe or hold anything, except that which God gives us grace to hold. We are nothing outside the grace and mercy of God, and we will do well to remember that constantly and regularly. All he gives us is in trust and there's nothing we have or hold that we can retain by our own power.
All the glory for all we see or have must be returned to God, the owner of all things and the determiner of the destinies of men.
May we never be so full of our own importance that we forget the important: God is the ultimate; not what we own or hold but who we know.
His time of favour is here.