We've all heard, I suspect, the adage that, "You can't take it with you."  Quite true. Despite the efforts of people, from the ancient Indo-Europeans and Egyptians to the "inhabitants" of modern masoleums to preserve--and continue--what they have as they leave this life, the sad truth remains:  nothing, materially speaking, will accompany us in our earthly passing.
     Wealth, and the kingdoms, be they cultural, political, or economic, that attend them, will not last indefinitely.  I recently read book titled The Final Voyage.  An account of the rise and fall of the New England whaling industry in the nineteenth century, The Final Voyage aptly presents how once enormously wealthy whaling merchants, their coffers swollen with the fruits of years of international whaling expeditions, expeditions taken in quest of whale oil, at that time the preferred oil for all appliances, eventually lost everything.  They failed to recognize how rapidly the oil produced by the burgeoning petroleum industry would supplant that of whales, how in just a few short decades oil from the ground would become the primary substance upon which the Industrial Revolution would move forward. 
     And most of them lost literally everything.  Their once mighty kingdoms crumbled and fell, collapsing under the weight of an economic tsunami to which they proved helpless to respond.  Their world was gone.
     On the other hand, although petroleum oil continues to dominate the energy industry, one day it may not. And what then will its proponents do?
     I trust they will adjust with circumspection.  We live so fleetingly, so very much captives of a finitude and time we will never overcome.
     And why?  Deuteronomy 29:29 observes that "the secret things belong to God"  True enough.  However--and happily--Ecclesiastes 9 advises us to "do whatever we do [that is good] with all our might."  Wealth's evanescence merely serves to underscore a more fundamental truth: we live, and die, in the loving and purposeful vision of God.