Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-001

Rowland Croucher

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Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. Luke 12:33.

The Puritans preached that ‘success’ results from God’s blessing, or God’s testing, or God’s abandonment and judgment, or the devil’s seduction. Only one in four was God’s prospering.

Success is never really satisfying: God hasn’t made us that way. We’re not to settle down here permanently – not even on the top of a mountain. (Looking down on others isn’t helpful spiritually; and you expend a lot of negative energy excluding others from the peak). The reward or prize is offered in the next life, said Jesus and Paul: in this, our badge of office is a towel, serving others rather than dominating them.

Satisfaction is ‘serendipitous’ – it’s in the journeying, rather than the arriving. The saints have a well-developed ‘theology of gratitude’: expect nothing, they say, and you won’t be disappointed.

May the things of earth – including temporal success – grow strangely dim, in the light of your eternal glory and grace. Amen.

Shalom!

Rowland Croucher <>