I have often been struck that while here on earth we count gold as the most precious of possessions, in heaven it’s used to merely pave the streets. What we count supremely valuable here is trod underfoot there. That description at once highlights the splendor of heaven and the futility of wealth. It at once shows that all the wealth of all the worlds would do nothing to make heaven any better for the wealthy than for the impoverished, for the richest billionaire than the poorest pauper.
So many of the world’s wealthiest people live their lives to accumulate what heaven counts as meaningless. They put their hope in finding joy in what they can take and earn, what they can have and hold. Yet, even if they manage to extend their lives a few years or a few decades they, too, will go the way of all the earth. They, too, will live forever, though only beyond the grave. They, too, will find that the greatest pleasures of this world pale in comparison to the greatest pleasures, or greatest torments, of the world to come.