Teach me what life is all about.
Help me to learn that it does not consist of possessions, no matter how many, no matter how nice.
Help me to realise that the more things I selfishly accumulate, the more barns I will have to build to store them in.
Help me to realise, too, that the storage fee on such things is subtracted from a life that could be rich toward you instead.
Where have I enriched myself as the expense of my soul?
Where have I been a fool. Show me; Lord. While there is still time to change.
Teach me that life is more than things necessary to sustain it.
Help me to learn that if life is more than food, surely it is more important than how the dining room looks; if it's more than clothes, certainly it is more important than whether there's enough closet space to hold them.
Keep me from treasuring those things, Lord. I don't want my heart to be stored up in some cupboard or closet the way that rich man's heart was stored up in his barns. I want my heart to be with you, treasuring the things you treasure.
Show me what those things are, Lord.
Sweep my heart clean of every kind of greed...
Help me to realise that just as I brought nothing into this world, so I can take nothing out, and that the only riches I will have in heaven are those which have gone before me, the riches I have placed in the hands of the poor for your safekeeping...