This is a choice story related by President Spencer W. Kimball, who reminds us that we all will go home as we came. There is no reason for pride, for all things are the Lord’s:
One day, a friend took me to his ranch. He unlocked the door of a large new automobile, slid under the wheel, and said proudly, “How do you like my new car?” We rode in luxurious comfort into the rural areas to a beautiful new landscaped home, and he said with no little pride, “This is my home.”
He drove to a grassy knoll. The sun was retiring behind the distant hills. He surveyed his vast domain. Pointing to the north, he asked, “Do you see that clump of trees yonder?” I could plainly discern them in the fading day.
He pointed to the east. “Do you see the lake shimmering in the sunset?” It too was visible.
“Now, the bluff that’s on the south.” We turned about to scan the distance. He identified barns, silos, the ranch house to the west. With a wide sweeping gesture, he boasted, “From the clump of trees, to the lake, to the bluff, and to the ranch buildings and all between—all this is mine. And the dark specks in the meadow—those cattle also are mine.”
And then I asked from whom he obtained it. The chain of title of his abstract went back to land grants from governments. His attorney had assured him he had an unencumbered title.
“From whom did the government get it?” I asked. “What was paid for it?”
There came into my mind the bold statement of Paul: “For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof” (1 Cor. 10:26).
And then I asked, “Did the title come from God, Creator of the earth and the owner thereof? Did he get paid? Was it sold or leased or given to you? If gift, from whom? If sale, with what exchange or currency? If lease, do you make proper accounting?”
And then I asked, “What was the price? With what treasures did you buy this farm?”
“Money!”
“Where did you get the money?”
“My toil, my sweat, my labor, and my strength.”
And then I asked, “Where did you get your strength to toil, your power to labor, your glands to sweat?”
He spoke of food.
“Where did the food originate?”
“From sun and atmosphere and soil and water.”
“And who brought those elements here?”
I quoted the psalmist: “Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary” (Ps. 68:9).
“If the land is not yours, then what accounting do you make to your landlord for his bounties? The scripture says: ‘Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s.’ What percentage of your increase do you pay Caesar? And what percent to God?
“Do you believe the Bible? Do you accept the command of the Lord through the prophet Malachi? It reads:
“‘Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings… .
“‘Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, … and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it’ (Mal. 3:8, 10).
“And in the latter days, the Lord said again:
“‘And if ye seek the riches which it is the will of the Father to give unto you, ye shall be the richest of all people, for ye shall have the riches of eternity; and it must needs be that the riches of the earth are mine to give’ (D&C 38:39)… .
I said again: “I seem to find no place in holy writ where God has said, ‘I give you title to this land unconditionally. It is yours to give, to have, to hold, to sell, despoil, exploit as you see fit.’
“And I remember that our Creator covenanted in the council in heaven with us all: ‘[And] We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and ye will make an earth whereon these may dwell’ (Abr. 3:24).
“It seems more of a lease on which a rental is exacted than of a fee simple title.
“Modern scripture says that if you live the commandments, ‘the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of … field and the fowls of the air, …
“‘Yea, all things which come of the earth, … are made for the benefit and the use of man’ (D&C 59:16, 18).
“This promise does not seem to convey the earth but only the use and contents which are given to men on condition that they live all of the commandments of God.”
But my friend continued to mumble, “Mine—mine,” as if to convince himself against the surer knowledge that he was at best a recreant renter.
That was long years ago. I saw him lying in his death among luxurious furnishings in a palatial home. His had been a vast estate. And I folded his arms upon his breast, and drew down the little curtains over his eyes. I spoke at his funeral, and I followed the cortege from the good piece of earth he had claimed to his grave, a tiny, oblong area the length of a tall man, the width of a heavy one.
Yesterday I saw that same estate, yellow in grain, green in lucerne, white in cotton, seemingly unmindful of him who had claimed it. (CR, April 1968, 73–74)