To gain or to find one's life we must be prepared to lose it. But so often like the third servant in the parable, we are so afraid to lose what is given to us that we clutch and hold on to it with all our heart, or we hide it for our own selfish, ego-centric purposes. Why must I share what is given to me? Why must another benefit from my efforts or my wealth or my gifts? In harbouring this attitude, we fail to obey God's very commandment "Go and multiply" or "Go engage in trade with what I have given you (Lk 19:13).

It is a lack of trust on our part in this sovereign God that makes us hoard and hide our talents and our wealth. We are afraid to trust Him to provide "our daily bread" and to be our only security so we try to establish our own security. Why is it so? We find it difficult at times to accept our place of subordination to this God who has made us in His image and we want to fashion Him after our own insecure, selfish and calculative selves - "I am afraid of you because you are a hard man. You take what is not yours" (Lk 19:21).