Have you ever noticed how kids are always comparing their lives? "My old man can beat up your old man."

"No, he can't. Besides, I've got a better bike than you."

"Nu-uh. Plus, our house is nicer."

And on it goes, measuring ourselves and our worth against someone else's standard.

My wife, her brother and sister used to get so mad at my father-in-law when they were kids. They'd say, "Dad, are we rich?"

And he would always say something that just flew all over them: "We're rich in the Lord."

"That's not what we mean. You know what we mean."

But we all know what they meant, right? Even though we're all grown up now, we still ask something similar, don't we?

The real question beneath the question isn't about whether or not we're rich, but about whether we're safe. Do I have enough to weather the storms? Will it protect me? And perhaps, just as importantly, will it last?

You ever think to yourself, "You know, I don't have to win the lottery. I'd just like enough to pay the bills."

But my inner people-translator can read between the lines. People just want to know they have enough to survive ... and, if there's anything leftover, you know, I've kind of had my eye on a new ________ (fill in the blank).

The way I grew up, success always seemed to have a warning label slapped on: "Make sure you're safe." That was the North Star. If you could string together a life where nothing went too wrong—where you had a dependable job, enough in the retirement account, and a secure home—well, then, maybe you didn’t win the Powerball, but you could say to your soul when you went to bed at night that you’d won a smaller kind of lottery. Peace of mind..

The saying, "Save for a rainy day," first appeared in an English play in 1560. All these years later, it still makes sense. But somewhere along the way, we started saving not just for a rainy day but for a forty-day flood. Then for an apocalypse. The goalposts kept moving. What started as prudence morphed into full-blown paranoia.

But that's not altogether unreasonable, is it?

I mean, who doesn't want to be safe?

Show me someone who doesn’t want a life where the wolves are kept at bay? We know what happens when the bottom drops out—the bills start piling up, the kids all need some kind of therapy, someone you love, someone who’s cared for you falls ill, and now your whole life is consumed by caring for them.

The problem comes when that longing for safety begins to displace everything else, when the pursuit of peace becomes an obsession. When it becomes something we hoard, something we worship.

That's what Jesus is up against in this parable from Luke 12. A man comes to Jesus with a seemingly innocuous request: "Tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me."

You can almost hear the frustration in his voice. Here's a man who's been to every family gathering, endured every awkward Thanksgiving, tried every angle to get what he believes is rightfully his.

But Jesus hears more than just a dispute about property. He hears a symptom of something deeper—pleonexia, the greed that creeps into the soul and convinces us that what we need is always a little bit more.