One of Jesus’ followers asked His intervention in a family feud. He wanted Jesus to prevail on his brother to divide the family inheritance with him. Jesus refused because that was not in His line of duty. The Master here demonstrates the importance of focus. You cannot be bogged down by side attractions and hope to make the most of your core assignment. Apart from refusing to mess with other people’s business, Jesus left the man with a valuable lesson. He taught him that life does not depend on the abundance of his material possessions. This is a vital lesson. It is easy to think that the more the merrier. Often, people fall for the temptation that if they make the next financial breakthrough or acquire the next property, life will be good. Those who fall for this are often involved in the proverbial rat race. It is an endless cycle of toils and tears.

Work is essentially a means to express creativity, contribute to society, and glorify God in the process…We should focus on the objectives of work while counting on God’s input to determine the outcome.

Equating possessions with life itself is the reason some push themselves unnecessarily hard. They feel they must work hard, too hard even, to acquire more. No doubt, the Bible consistently promotes the virtue of hard work. However, there is nowhere that the Bible asked us to work without restraint. We have heard of unfortunate stories of people in the diaspora who worked round the clock, only to collapse and die. Work is essentially a means to express creativity, contribute to society, and glorify God in the process. Whether this results in great riches is another issue altogether. We should focus on the objectives of work while counting on God’s input to determine the outcome.