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Jesus once told a story about a man whom most of us would greatly admire.  He was industrious.  He was productive.  He managed his business affairs so efficiently and he became independently wealthy.  On top of all of this, he was fun-loving.  Hi philosophy of life was “relax, eat healthy, drink well, enjoy yourself.”

That is the kind of person that most today would not only admire but would probably even envy a bit.  He is the prime example these days of a successful man.  But in the story, Jesus said that in the eyes of God this admirable, enviable, so-called successful man was a fool.

Of all the labels we hate to have pinned on us, this one might head the list.  Everyone can remember some occasion when we made a fool of ourselves.  You lost your temper and said things you would dearly love to take back.  But you cannot.  Once a word has been spoken, it can never be unspoken.

One of life’s most painful experiences is the realization that you have made a fool of yourself.  Imagine how it would feel to come to the end of your days and have that label applied to your entire life.

So, in God’s eyes what does it mean to be a fool?  First and most glaring would be a person who totally forgets his or her dependence upon other people.

Most of us live in houses that others built.  We worship in a church that was constructed by hands other than our own.  We could not begin to make a complete list of the many ways in which other people contribute to our lives.  This interdependence of the human family should be obvious to us all.  And if we ever allow ourselves to forget that, then we are acting like fools.

You and I are not in this world simply to take care of ourselves.  Our mission in this life is to help, and anyone who fails to do that is not fully alive.  When we leave out other people – our dependence upon them and our responsibility to them, we are making fools of ourselves.

But this supreme folly would be to leave God out of our lives.  We need to remember how dependent we really are upon God.  Most of life is a gift.  We do not accomplish it in our strength.  We simply use what God has provided.  Without Him, we can do nothing.  To pass through this world with no awareness of dependence upon God, is a foolish way to live.

Not only are we dependent upon Him, we are also responsible to Him.  Remember well that we will be called one day to give an account of what we have done with our life.

That thought should not frighten us, but it should sober us.  And beyond that, it should encourage us.  There is comfort in the knowledge that someone knows and cares who we are and how we live.  We are not orphans in this universe.  We have a heavenly Father, who loves us and who has entrusted us with the marvelous gift of life and is holding us accountable for what we do with it.