How did you get to be where you are? Luck? A Christian would rather call it Providence. Cleverness? Good - but cleverness alone will not save us from possible disaster.

In the 1890s - a hundred years ago - my country Australia was about the wealthiest, per capita, in the world. Now we're fourteenth, and slipping. Our productivity is at least twenty per cent below that of comparable enterprises in competitor countries. Why? Several reasons, but we're relying too heavily on industries where world markets are declining. It was too easy for us to mine our wealth out of the ground, or shear it off the backs of sheep. But new plastics are replacing many metals, and synthetic fibres wool. We've got to be clever, as well as lucky. That will take hard work, and ingenuity, and creativity.

For some, the fault lies outside themselves. Since 1900, two million people have been killed or injured on our roads. More than half of these accidents were wholly or partially due to alcohol. This year about 250,000 throughout the world, and 4,000 Australians, many of them young, will die on our roads. Are they 'unlucky'? Most accidents are the result of someone not being too clever.

What is my life, Lord? It's like a mist that appears briefly and then vanishes. Life is precarious. Help me to handle it with prayer. Amen.