Hank Hanson’s dream house was one of the 700 homes and other structures destroyed in the massive wildfires in Northern California a couple of weeks ago. What firefighting officials are calling a “lightning siege,” some 12,000 lightning strikes have produced more than 500 wildfires. The 13,700 firefighters have not been able to control them. Hanson, now 81-years-old, spent 30 years building his 3,000-square-foot (279-square-meter) dream house nestled in the lovely mountains of northern California, with a wine cellar, three fireplaces, and indoor and outdoor pools. He says he has no plans to rebuild. “I wouldn’t want to do it on a lesser scale, and I don’t have time to top the old one” (“California Dream House,” ABC News, Aug. 23, 2020). Every dream house will burn up eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. The Lord Jesus Christ gave a wakeup call 2,000 years ago pertaining to a man who had made his fortune and planned to live out his life in ease. “And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 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. 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? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:20).
(Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)