I am thankful today. It snowed Sunday and early Monday morning the roads were still a bit wet, temps around the freezing mark, and I’m driving to work in Black Bart. A guy in a battered old pickup is speeding down the dedicated left turn lane next to me … when the lane ends, he doesn’t turn left as he should but keeps going. The lane is narrowing with barriers on his left and me on his right. He’s trying to get around me and the three cars behind me. When he runs out of room, he hits the gas and attempts to sneak past, and goes into a tail spin.
He came with an “angel’s width” of the front of my car, then his car starts doing 360’s in my lane. I’m slamming on my brakes, praying the three behind me are doing the same. The battered pickup keeps spinning until he flies down the ditch on our right and ends up sideways, but upright. This all happened in a matter of seconds. It left me shaky but praising God for that “angel” that got between me and the pickup. There is no way that guy would have missed me otherwise.
In a moment’s notice everything can change. In Luke 12:16-21, Jesus spoke a parable about a rich fool. He tells the story of a man who had everything. He harvested so much he had to build bigger storage areas to hold it all. He thought that now he could live in ease, “eat, drink, and be merry” for years to come. But God had other plans for him. “God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’”
If there is a Bible story for our day and age, and its pursuit of more and more so that we can “eat, drink, and be merry…” and build bigger barns, it’s this Bible parable told by Jesus. In an instant, life can change – or even be gone, on a highway, in our homes, or where we work or play. We need to make sure that we heed God’s warning to the rich man – and His warning to us, “So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Beloved, we need to make sure our priorities are right! [vs21 NKJV]
