It often takes a tragedy for us to take a step back and look at our priorities. It is often the tragedy of death that gets us thinking with an 'eternal' perspective and out of our here-and-now perspective. In Luke 12:13, Jesus is confronted by a member of the crowd who said to him "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." In the wake of the death of his father, he and his brother are at odds. Should this be? Shouldn't the death of a loved one help focus our hearts on fostering relationships, and honoring the heritage that was passed down to us?
Earlier this year, my mother's mother passed away. In the wake of her passing, I have communicated more with my cousins and uncles than I have in years. My communication with my cousins has been great, and we're bonding and growing closer together. On the other hand, my communication with my uncles has focused almost all on, you guessed it, the inheritance. I won't bore you with the details of Illinois probate law, but suffice it to say that basically one of my mom's brothers, who is the executor of the estate, thought there should be a 3 way split between himself and his two brothers, but my dad and I thought that my mom's share should pass to her heirs and not be 'absorbed' by her siblings.
I admit that I spent way too much time doing legal research and basically obsessing about this for at least a month or two. I feel like I've resigned myself to let happen what will at this point, but it was a real struggle to get to that point mentally. When Jesus responded to the audience member's query about his inheritance, he told him a parable about a man who encountered prosperity and said to himself
"You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry" (12:19). But, that very night he was to die, and would never enjoy that planned merriment. Jesus followed that parable with this teaching: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, … or about your body, what you will wear… do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well" (12:22,29-31).
If you're like me, it can hard to find that balance between focusing on my work and my responsibility to provide for my family, but not focusing so much on that provision that I try to take the reigns out of God's hands. How many times during the day do I need to hand those reigns back over to Him? The more I focus on the people and relationships in my life, the less that I focus on 'stuff'. And really, aren't the relationships we build here the only thing we take with us?
If you haven't read the full story of the parable of the "Rich Fool" and Jesus' take on worrying about things of this world, you read it online at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=49&chapter=12&version=31 or you can use your own Bible.
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