The French have a story about a wealthy man who spent his days counting his gold. Next door was a poor cobbler who spent his days singing as he repaired shoes. The joyful singing irritated the rich man, so he decided to give some gold coins to the cobbler to shut him up. The cobbler was overjoyed. He took the coins and hid them. But then he started to worry, and would keep going back to check if they were still there. But that made him worry even more in case someone had seen him, and so he kept moving them to safer places. Then one day he realized that there was no longer any music in his life. So he went back to the rich man and said, “take back your coins and give me back my songs.”
It’s what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Watch out…your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.’