Rain Man Doesn't Understand Inheritance

"Rain Man" was the top moneymaking film of 1988, and also won the Oscar for Best Picture. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish wheeler-dealer named Charlie (Tom Cruise), who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant, of whose existence Charlie was unaware. At first, Charlie is only focused on getting a bigger share of the inheritance, but over the course of the movie he grows to care more about his autistic brother Raymond. Raymond has inherited almost 3 million dollars, but has no understanding of what that means, and no real concept of money. Because of his autism, he only cares about minute things like apple juice and Cheetos and watching “The People’s Court” on TV. He has received an enormous inheritance, but doesn’t understand it, and doesn’t live like it.

How many of us live with a kind of spiritual autism? God has prepared for us an unimaginable inheritance and promises to provide for our every need; but even though we’ve heard that and say we believe that, why do we still spend so much of our time worrying about the apple juice, Cheetos, and TV shows in our lives?