Bless the Lord, my soul, and forget none of his benefits.
Psalm 103.2

It is a useful as well as an inspiring reflection at the end of the day to consider all the good things that have happened, all the happiness that one has experienced, all the valuable connections one has made as a prelude to the time that is to be. The scale of benefits gives one some indication of one's spiritual condition. To the unawakened person the good things will be material benefits, the happiness sensual pleasures of one type or another, and the valuable connections people of high degree in their various professions or social rank who can help one on in one's career. None of this is to be derided, but the transience of all purely material benefits is too obvious to be denied.

Thus Jesus tells the parable of a man whose land yielded heavy crops; he had so much surplus that he did not know what to do with it, and so he decided to replace his present storehouses with larger ones in which to deposit the crops. Then he could relax in the certainty of many years of plenty. But suddenly God called him, warning him that he would have to surrender his life that very night. Where would his riches get him now? This is how it is for a person who amasses private wealth but remains a pauper in God's sight (Luke 12.16-21). It is not the material benefits that are wrong, but rather the use of them as unfailing bastions of support, that God condemned.

Following on from this parable, it is evident that the benefits so vital to the unspiritual person will have to be taken away before a more mature grasp of God's bounty will be shown to him or her. "Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where it grows rusty and moth-eaten, and thieves break in to steal it. Store up treasure in heaven, where there is no moth and no rust to spoil it, no thieves to break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt. 6.19-21). It is this treasure that should be the source of our unending songs of praise to God.

When, like Job, but hopefully not as radically, we have to surrender all the things that make life worth living - family relationships, possessions, reputation, and even our health - we are not entirely bereft, provided the house which is our life has been built on rock and not on sand (Matt. 7.24-7). It is our inner life, where high aspiration is founded on integrity and educated by compassion, that alone can withstand the adversities afflicting us day by day. In the words of H. F. Lyte's famous hymn, "Change and decay in all around I see: O Thou who changest not, abide with me." If our life has been one of unfailing service outwardly and prayer within, the jewels of our character will coruscate all the more brightly when we are enveloped in the darkness of material gloom and emotional turbulence.

When we know this inner domain, we are then worthy of receiving back our material benefits. Having by force of necessity as much as personal striving to return to the world of matter, we can use whatever riches are restored to us with detachment and for the benefit of others rather than for our own devices, remembering Jesus' words: "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well" (Matt. 6.33). It is useful to remember St Teresa of Avila's bookmark:

Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee;
All things pass:
God never changes.
Peace attains
All that it strives for.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

Thank you, Lord, that I have been privileged with the gift of life. May I so use it that my witness becomes a blessing to the many on the path who can scarcely distinguish between the darkness of illusion and the light of sanctity.