Luke 12: 16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
The parable of the rich fool is a good illustration that buttresses this topic. The ground of this man yielded so much harvest to a point where he contemplated where to store the harvest. That's normal for any man that experiences a boom.
However, the disposition of his heart is where he missed it. In verses 18&19, "And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry".
His life's security was in material prosperity alone not in God. In verse 20, God said: "But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided"?
How did he get to the point where his success in farming made a fool of him? When he was toiling and praying to be successful, why didn't God call him a fool?
In my opinion, he was seduced by the traps that beset successful people. He felt he had arrived and that was his undoing.
Some persons stopped praying, fasting, studying the bible and their devotional life went on the downward spiral after they achieved little success.
They stopped doing the very things that got them to the top. On getting to the top, they just couldn't manage success.
For some ministers of the gospel, they fell into the trap of pride and over compensation. They over compensate themselves with exhorbitant material things under the guise of having suffered for the ministry in the past.
As a preacher, If your emphasis during preaching shift from the kingdom's message to material things even If it is your church edifice and fat bank account, success may be making a fool out of you.
We all must learn how to manage success so that we won't end like the rich fool.
The time to be more humble, more prayerful and closer to God is when our ground yields a bountiful harvest.
Father, I receive the grace to manage success and not to fall into the trap that comes with success in Jesus name.