Thought for the week

MONEY is a bit like British sunshine: it goes away and visits when it likes.

Handling finances can sometimes feel like sand running through our fingers. We fear its loss because living without resources can be daunting, painful, and dark. None of us wants to see our resources diminish or disappear.

Strangely enough, the Bible encourages us (Proverbs 6:6) to learn from ants! They teach us to work hard to increase what we are given. Taking care of what we have is a good and worthy challenge, and it changes us as we learn to do it with integrity and peace.

However the Bible also tells us to give generously, releasing our natural strangle-hold on what we own. We’re told to share gladly and to help others when they need it.

Money and circumstance are fickle. Releasing money tells our souls the truth: that we don’t depend on it and we don’t ultimately depend on ourselves: we depend on God.

Jesus Christ told his disciples to ‘look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?’ (Matt 6:26)

Freely releasing the resources God has given us to do good, to share, and to benefit others, is an act of trust. It neutralises the grasping fear that clutches at our hearts as we strive to provide for ourselves and those we love. And it reminds us that our God is a good God, and that He loves us with an unquenchable love that is far more valuable than anything mere money could provide.

Kate Gough