1 Timothy 6:7

This verse comes from a letter the apostle Paul — one of the early leaders of the Christian church — wrote to a young pastor named Timothy, who was overseeing a church in the ancient city of Ephesus. The surrounding verses address the danger of loving money, and Paul grounds his argument in the most basic and undeniable human reality: we arrive in this world with nothing, and we leave the same way. Every possession, achievement, and dollar accumulated in between is temporary by definition. Paul isn't declaring that wealth is sinful, but he is challenging the assumption — apparently alive and well in Timothy's church — that financial gain was a sign of God's favor or a source of lasting security. The verse levels the playing field with a single, irrefutable observation.

Father, remind me today that everything I have passed through your hands before it reached mine. Loosen my grip on what I cling to too tightly. Teach me to hold loosely what cannot last, and to invest wholeheartedly in what actually will. Amen.

There's a moment at every funeral where this verse becomes undeniable. No U-Haul follows the hearse. The house, the investment accounts, the carefully curated collection of things — all of it stays. What's strange is how rarely that reality actually changes how we live. We know this verse is true the way we know that sleep is important: intellectually, without urgency, until a crisis forces us to reckon with it. Paul writes it with urgency because he's addressing people who had started treating faith like a financial strategy — expecting that godliness would pay off in material comfort. He stops them cold with something they already know but haven't let themselves fully feel. The invitation here isn't to poverty or the performance of simplicity. It's to honesty — the kind that asks hard questions at 11 PM when the house is quiet. What are you actually holding onto, and why? What would it feel like to release it — not into someone else's hands, but into God's? You came into this world empty-handed. You will leave the same way. That's not a threat. It's a strange, clarifying kind of freedom. If you can't take it with you, then everything you have right now is a question about generosity. What is it for? Who does it serve? What would it look like to hold it a little more loosely starting today?