God creates each person for good works, but faith and salvation remain gifts that people can never truly merit. By telling a story about a man who died within a day of making plans to slack off after a bountiful harvest, Jesus challenged the faithful not to store up earthly treasure at the expense of what matters to God. On the other hand, like a gardener cultivating and fertilizing so that an unproductive fig tree might, at last, bear fruit, the Lord does not give up on people. Without knowing how long a lifetime will last, followers of Jesus know that they should try to do God’s will all the time. How often do we make the mistake of gauging God’s approval by comparing our blessings to those of people around us?