Daily lesson for October 31, 2014

Today's lesson comes from Luke chapter 12 verses 13 through 15:

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, uwho made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

It really is astonishing how often and how heated are the disputes between heirs after the passing of a patriarch or matriarch. I have seen arguments over cash, CDs, books, businesses, art, guns, clothes, cars, and even cats and dogs -- no birds yet.

One day in a counseling session with a son locked in an inheritance dispute with his brother after the death of their father.  As I listened it dawned on me that what they were arguing about we often call "belongings". It occurred to me that what these boys were longing for, and what they had "been longing" for all their lives, and what they were still "longing" for was a healthy relationship with their father. They were "longing" for him to tell them, "I love you," and take an interest in what they were involved in and what their lives were about. They were both longing for their father to say, "I'm proud of you." That never happened and so now what was left to fight over were their father's "belongings" -- poor substitutes for what they were really missing. 

When Jesus was asked by one brother to tell his other brother to divide the inheritance with him Jesus broke into a story about a man who struck it rich and then built bigger and bigger barns to hold all his stuff. But that night God came to him and said, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"

That question is not answered in the Scripture but I can tell you from experience whose they'll be -- his disputing sons'.

So it is for the man who is rich in things but poor in soul, for the man who having withheld from his sons the love of his heart leaves them fighting over the belongings of his closet.