What Cannot Be Lost

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Reverend Canon Dr Mark Clavier.

Good morning.

On this day in 1929, crowds gathered outside the New York Stock Exchange, waiting for news. Inside, trading reached a record volume. Because the ticker tape fell hours behind, many investors learned only late in the day how much money they’d already lost. For a few hours, their lives seemed secure in a world that was already collapsing.

It’s a vivid picture of how quickly what seems secure can vanish. It also shows how easily we come to measure our worth by money, status, and success. Our lives can be like ships anchored in sand.

Jesus warned his hearers against storing up treasures on earth, “where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal.” Then he added a sharper point: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). What we treasure shapes who we become. Christians hear in this less a rejection of possessions than a question about where we place our trust.

We’re so easily possessed by our possessions. Their loss can feel like a loss of ourselves. If everything by which you measure yourself were taken away, what would remain? Paul, writing from prison, urged his friends to fill their minds with whatever is true, honourable, just, pure and commendable. Such things can’t be captured by ticker tape, and no crash can touch them.

Let us pray.
God of all, you are our true security. Free us from anxiety about what we may lose and teach us to treasure virtues that endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.