Great Plains Daily Devotional for 8/8/2019

Luke 12:16-21 

Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

In the second right-hand drawer of my dresser I keep my T-shirts. They come from so many places – places I’ve visited, places I’ve worked, programs in which I’ve participated in. Lots of T-shirts. So many, in fact, that I have had to smoosh them down to get the drawer closed.
I do love to get more – wherever I go. I’m kind of greedy when it comes to T-shirts. At the same time, I have encountered many folks at the homeless shelter who have exactly one shirt.

A place to store these shirts had become a problem. Maybe a bigger dresser would help, or perhaps using an extra dresser from when our children worked at home would work.

It’s easy to become sated with T-shirts, or with body products or with chocolate bars. We can each fill in the blank for ourselves. How easy it is to become so saturated with God? Being replete with goods or things or people of our world does not lead to being safe. Usually being full in such a way leaves us wanting more, convinced that our only problem is finding bigger, better storage. Then when we acquire more storage and more of the items, we decide we have a bit more room and can get more. It’s a circle. It’s where the rich fool found himself.

What happens, though, when we are satiated with God, being filled past capacity with God’s loving presence, with being cared for, even through difficulties, with a sense of safety? We can settle in and allow that presence just to help us feel good. Or, we can heed Jesus’ words in Luke 12. We can allow ourselves to be so stuffed with God’s presence that it calms us, brings us peace, and spills out of us into a hurting and needy world.

So, which do you choose today?

Prayer for Reflection

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15
Luke 11:1-13