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Good Advice on Living

Inflation is a serious problem world wide. Prices continue to rise. Wages seldom match the price increases. This makes life difficult, and it is easy to allow the material cares of life to take all one’s time and attention.

Yet, none of our possessions would be of any value if we did not have life. Where does life come from?

A product of chance? Certainly not. Even with human intelligence, none of us can design a small seed that will grow into a flower or a tree. Nor could we bring forth children without the marvelous faculties that were ours at birth. Extraordinary intelligence is evident in the design of these things. Whose? Not ours. It is God Almighty alone who has the power to give life, and his provisions also sustain it.​—Acts 17:25, 28.

To help us appreciate that, Jesus Christ told a story about a rich man whose crops grew very well. He did not have room to store all the crops. What would he do? He said to himself: “I will tear down my storehouses and build bigger ones, and there I will gather all my grain and all my good things; and I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.’”

There was something wrong with that man’s thinking. He acted as if his life and material prosperity depended only on himself. He gave no thought to God, set aside no time to learn and to do God’s will. But God said to him: “Unreasonable one, this night they are demanding your soul from you. Who, then, is to have the things you stored up?”

Jesus added: “So it goes with the man that lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God.”​—Luke 12:16-21.

No material possessions can give life. No matter how much money a person acquires, death overtakes him. His life does not result from the things he possesses.

Whether we have few possessions or have an abundance, our personal future rests with God. So it is good to ask ourselves: What are we doing about getting to know the One who is the Source of life? Are we living in a way that he approves? A wise person will not be so preoccupied with the physical cares of life that he fails to become “rich toward God.”