We hear the message everywhere: Follow your passion. Chase your dreams. Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s plastered on Instagram posts, echoed in graduation speeches, and preached on from motivational stages. The promise is enticing – a life of purpose, fulfillment, and achievement.
That’s the dream. Isn’t it?
While the rest of the world may be fine settling for this version, Christians know there’s more to the story. As followers of Jesus, we’re invited to see our dreams through a different lens.
Left on our own, it’s easy to fall into the endless pursuit of more, but what we find in the end is that the finish line keeps moving. What was once our definition of success feels disappointing. If this worldly dream is the one we’re after, we’ll never fully reach it.
Somehow, it never feels like enough. Satisfaction stays just out of reach. The dream keeps moving further away.
But Jesus gives us a new dream – one that is less about the pursuit of our own earthly treasures and more about the pursuit of God’s eternal ones.
A rich man’s gains
In Luke 12:13-21, Jesus offers a parable to guide us in understanding this idea. Here, he tells the story of a rich man whose land produced an abundant harvest. Looking at all he’s gained, he realizes he has more than even he can use.
Here’s what happened:
This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there, I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.’
– Luke 12:18-19
We can probably relate to this rich man’s impulse to store his wealth for himself. After all, he’s worked hard. He’s achieved more than he expected and has more than he ever imagined. This is the dream, isn’t it?
God’s response tells us otherwise.
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?’
This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.
– Luke 12:20-21
By today’s standards, the rich man in the story Jesus told had it all. He had financial security, the freedom to do whatever he wanted, and the ability to live his best life. But in God’s eyes, he’s a fool for this pursuit. His dream, as it turns out, wasn’t worth chasing.
A better perspective
Jesus’ story ultimately exposes the problem with our worldly pursuits. The problem isn’t that the rich man was successful; it’s that he opted to store his wealth for himself rather than being “rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). Whether he realized it or not, he’d pursued the wrong dream with the wrong perspective.
Thankfully, as believers, we aren’t left to wonder what the new perspective – the better perspective – for our pursuits should be. In fact, his experience gives us three insights into what this might be.
- God gave us the freedom to be generous.
Jesus’ death and resurrection paid for our sins, and we’ve been given grace freely. We’re freed from the exhausting cycle of chasing the world’s dreams, of earning, gaining, and storing wealth. Instead, we can open our hands and hearts. We can be generous without keeping score, give without looking to gain by it, and operate with the kind of generosity that doesn’t demand reciprocity.This freedom transforms our relationship with money, time, and talents. Many of you have experienced this freedom – the freedom to be generous with your money, relationships, time, and talents. Somewhere along the way, you learned that trying to accumulate enough to feel secure was an unending goal. Now, you’re holding what you’ve been given with gratitude and open hands. And now, your dreams can be less about what you extract from the world and more about what you contribute to it. Your life can be more about fulfilling dreams not built on getting, but on giving. - Our wealth is a gift to share.
The rich man’s harvest was a gift. He didn’t control the weather, the soil, or the market conditions that made his success possible. Hard work probably did help him achieve his success, but at the end of the day, what he’d gained was due less to his efforts and more to God’s blessing on his life. “Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today,” Deuteronomy 8:18 says. God was there making him successful. How did this man miss him?When we come to really understand that God is the author of our success, everything changes about the way we see wealth. Instead of hoarding what we have for ourselves, we begin to consider a different approach. Our dreams aren’t just about what we can achieve or accumulate but about what we can give. When we see our wealth as a gift, it changes the way we use it. Doesn’t it? Then, our dreams become vehicles for generosity, channels for pouring out what we’ve received to bless others. - God has bigger dreams that include our generosity.
God’s dream for humanity is so much bigger than anything we could pursue on our own. The foolish man’s dream was to sit back, relax, and enjoy the spoils of wealth for himself, but that wasn’t what God wanted for him. It’s a common dream – accumulate, retire, travel, enjoy life. But we’re called to something else, to become conduits of his generosity.Embracing God’s bigger dream can change the way we think about our own personal dreams and even how we see ourselves. Then, what we’re pursuing for our lives isn’t just about what it means for us but also about how we can use it for others. When we align our dreams with God’s generous heart, we focus less on accumulating and more on being generous.
A new dream
The rich man’s tragedy wasn’t that he was successful, but that he was successful only for himself. He forgot God in his choices, his plans, and his dreams. He built bigger barns when he could have built bigger tables. He stored grain when he could have shared bread. He planned for decades of self-indulgence when he could have invested in eternal significance.
“Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously …. God is able to bless you abundantly ….” (2 Corinthians 9:6-8).
When we stop storing up wealth for our own dreams and start giving out of God’s abundance, we discover that there’s so much more for us than anything we can earn in this life. Not more money, more achievements, more success, but more joy than we ever imagined was possible in relationship with the Giver himself.
Being rich in God’s economy – receiving the surpassing riches of knowing Christ – is the only dream worth chasing.
