HAVING a few pounds salted away in Bradford & Bingley, I have followed the current financial upsets with a degree of personal interest: and so has everyone else. Our pensions, savings, jobs, mortgages, homes and finances are all deeply affected by what looks increasingly like a world recession. A trillion-dollar black hole in the US banking system threatens to drag us all into an unprecedented economic mess.

There is plenty of blame being thrown around: city bankers risking our money, speculators, short-sellers (whatever they are), the government taking on unprecedented levels of debt: and most of us have been enjoying an unprecedented standard of living, often overextending our own finances or at least failing to save for the future.

So here is a reminder; the best things in life are free! Friendship costs nothing, love sustains us through the toughest of times, Dartmoor and the coast are there for all to enjoy, personal security and status need have no relationship to what we own or earn.

"I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation", writes the apostle Paul, "whether living in plenty or in want." Here was someone who knew times of hardship and times when he was comfortable, and yet those material circumstances do not seem to have made a great difference to his sense of well-being.

So what was his secret? In another letter he tells Timothy to "Command those who are rich in this world not to put their trust in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their trust in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." They are apt words for uncertain times.

Those who have little in the way of material possessions often find the riches that last. In the words of a Kenyan Christian, "People in the West always seem to be on the run. They seem to want a bigger challenge, a better job, a bigger house. Yet so often they do not seem to have time to think. So often they never find their true selves."