MINE!

Here on the hill, I am up and out the door to do my morning "farm chores" before the sun gets too hot. It's not much of a farm here, it's more like someone threw the makings of Old MacDonald onto my lawn, and then took a holiday. 

I feed, and I water, and then I make an inspection of the vegetable garden. "Very nice, beets, keep doing your thing." "Straighten up, tomato!" "What is this BUG?!" Today, "Cabbage" has almost filled his raised box. "Look at that!", I said to myself, "look at what I have done! I have grown a massive cabbage! The biggest of all earthly cabbages! Next month, we will have sauerkraut galore!" Then, with a pat on my back, I headed in for coffee. "I will plant more cabbage, and more cabbage, and they will all be big, and beautiful, because I am the best grower ever!"

I think I heard you laugh at me. Isn't this how all of us live life? It is today, and if today does not hold some kind of crisis to drive us to the feet of God, we manage to find a way to call all of our successes "MINE!" Like toddlers, gripping something that doesn't belong to us with our sticky fingers, and daring anyone to pull it from our grasp. Then, we run the other way, forgetting the Great Giver, and replacing Him instead with anything that we can hold in our hands.

Luke 12:16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.

17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “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.

19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’

20 “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?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”