PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

April 10, 2020

WHERE OUR TREASURE IS

I have just finished re-reading Mark Twain’s Roughing It.  A good portion of the book has to do with silver mining in Nevada with all of its volatility, sudden change of fortunes, and uncertainty.  The following give a flavor of what it was like in those days.

“You could go up on the mountainside, scratch around and find a ledge (there was not lack of them), put up a ‘notice’ with a grandiloquent name in it, start a shaft, get your stock printed, and with nothing whatever to prove that your mine was worth a straw, you could put your stock on the market and sell out for hundreds and even thousands of dollars.  To make money, and make it fast, was as easy as it was to eat your dinner.  Every man owned ‘feet’ in fifty different wildcat mines and considered his fortune made.”  (Roughing It, Signet Classic, p. 231)

As I was reading Twain’s description of the early days of silver mining in Nevada what came to mind was the current fad of cryptocurrency.  I am still trying to find an explanation of what it is that I can understand.  Cryptocurrency would seem not to have any substance but only exist on paper.  I am not sure what gives it value and how one goes about issuing it so that someone else will buy it.  From my point of view the whole venture would seem to be somewhat speculative and lacking in certainty.

My look at cryptocurrency got to me to look at my own finances.  Almost all of them are done by computers.  Most of my income is direct deposited and many bills are automatically paid.  The value of my investments is dictated by the stock market and I trust the financial institutions where I have money to be solvent and financially sound.  Because of inflation my net worth has decreased in its purchasing power since the start of the year.

Two months ago the people of Ukraine were leading stable lives.  Today, everything is in chaos and many of them possess very little of value.  Their homes are gone and the country’s economy is in shambles.  Closer to home almost every day the news reports another incident where persons have had their security wiped out because of natural disaster, illness, an accident, or some other cause.  Given the uncertain nature of life, where is one to find security that will last?

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mat. 6:19)

The Book of Ecclesiastes suggests that there are many things of this world which have value, are important and give pleasure but eventually come to an end.  The world that is usually translated “vanity” in Ecclesiastes actually means a breath.  The last breath you just took was hardly in vain and without consequence.    It was vital for your continued existence, but it was passing.  In the same ways the treasures of this world have their importance but are transitory.

For the present I suspect that cryptocurrency is an interesting diversion.  However, there is danger that it might become an obsession upon which one strives to build up treasures on this earth where the moths and rust consume and where reversals of fortune are common.

A scriptural index of past articles can be found at musingsfromtheheartland.com.