Lessons from a 4-year-old (and 2 Rich Guys)

Once upon a time when my kids were little and we were at my in-law’s for a family meal, someone had made a delicious green salad, which happened to have red grapes in it. 

The kids were sitting at the table with prepared plates in front of them. The adults were cheerfully working their way through the buffet-style line at the kitchen counter piling their plates high with all the delicious fare (including the aforementioned green salad with red grapes), when all of a sudden my 4-year-old nephew cried out loud and clear over all the happy chatter in the room:

“Hey!! Why is there salad in my grapes!” 

Laughter ensued as we all chuckled at the sweetness of his misplaced perspective. 

And I thought, well yeah, who can blame him? I mean, a salad with grapes is quite lovely. A juicy bunch of grapes with some lettuce thrown in? Not so much. 

Our perspective changes everything. 

Of course, so often there is much more at stake from a misplaced perspective than whether or not we have salad in our grapes or grapes in our salad. A young man in the gospels shows us the tragedy of a more serious misplaced perspective. 

Misplaced Perspective

This young man was extremely rich (Luke 18:23), he lived a morally good life keeping the commandments of God (Mark 10:18-20), and evidently he wanted one more thing for his life to be complete: to inherit eternal life (Mark 10:17).

He came to the right place: to Jesus, the source of this eternal life, but He didn’t really understand who he was talking to. 

“Good teacher,” he called Jesus. 

Good? Jesus is, in fact, good. But He is more “good” than this young man knew. He is the Creator of all things, full of all the goodness of God, and He Himself is treasure beyond anything we could ask for or imagine.

But this young man didn’t get that. 

What this man saw was a good teacher who might be able to give him good things, including the right box to check to inherit eternal life. 

So Jesus told him, “…Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21b)

This was the offer: Trade the current “good” life you know, for a life with Jesus. 

If this young man had understood all that Jesus was, all that Jesus offered, he would have jumped for joy. That’s it?? All I have to do to inherit eternal life is to give up my life and follow Jesus?? I’m in!

But tragically, this young man’s perspective was off. All he could think of was the stuff he would lose in the process, and he “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (Mark 10:22).

This rich young man did not have the right perspective. 

So how would a different perspective have changed things? We see an example of this displayed in another rich man: Zacchaeus.

Proper Perspective

Zacchaeus was also very wealthy. But unlike the rich young man, he wasn’t living a morally good life. Zacchaeus was a tax collector, a chief tax collector at that, and tax collectors were known for being deceitful and corrupt, often taking more from people than was necessary and pocketing the extra.

But when Zacchaeus met Jesus, something changed. He understood that his present riches were nothing compared to the immeasurable wealth of Jesus Christ, and instead of going away from Jesus sad as the first rich man did, Zacchaeus received Jesus joyfully (Luke 19:1-10).

Zacchaeus went from being a defrauding sinner to a generous giver. He gave away half of what he owned to the poor and restored fourfold all that he had taken from others (Luke 19:8). 

The previous rich young man checked all the right boxes for a morally good life, but missed the best “good” he could possibly have: Jesus. 

Zacchaeus was a rotten sinner, enjoying worldly ill-gotten treasure, but he found the greatest treasure possible and traded his present rich life for a truly good one; an eternally rich one, with Jesus.  

What a difference perspective makes!

Eternal Perpective

This is why Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:13 to:

"...set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of our Lord Jesus.”

When our hope is in Christ and all that is waiting for us when He returns, we are equipped to live each day with the right perspective, no matter what we face. 

Oh, how I need this reminder every day!

Because it’s not just riches the Lord wants us to trade - it’s our whole lives. Our sins, our sorrows, our joys; absolutely everything we give to Jesus is transformed into something infinitely better, and we’ll see the fullness of all that is true in Christ one day in our heavenly home with Him. 

So, what is your perspective?  

I challenge you, whatever it currently is, fix your hope fully on Christ, and live your life with the right perspective: Jesus, our loving Savior and conquering King, is coming back for you one day, and all that He is is far better than anything we could ever know apart from Him.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

 

*This post has been lightly edited from its original form which I first wrote for my church's newsletter.