Burnie Staples offers the following insightful reflection on our nation's current financial status and how we should pray.
I have watched with great interest, the ups and downs of the stock market, prices of oil, and vast fluctuations in the US and world economy along with the predictions of what bank will be the next to fall. I also think it’s interesting to watch the politicians, the presidential race, and all that regalia as they point fingers at the opposite party, in an attempt to “fix blame” for the financial mess that the US is in, along with pretty much the rest of the world, excluding most of the OPEC alliance.
The world just doesn’t “get it”. Since recorded history, including the biblical accounts of man, our world runs in cycles. There are good times, There are bad times. They have been around always. In the biblical times, they called them “famines or droughts” instead of recession or depression. But the effect was about the same. Bad times. God always had a plan to see his people through the famine.
Today, our society and culture think we are smart enough to control everything. So when the economy isn’t great, we look for someone to blame. We refuse to acknowledge that we aren’t in control. As I write this, some of the (supposedly) smartest economic people in the world are furiously trying to craft an economic bail out plan that will work to solve the financial issues our country and the world faces right now. God may bring our economy down to it’s knees or He may not, but whatever happens, he is in control.
Not Wall Street.
Not Washington.
Not Warren Buffett.
Not Senators Obama or McCain.
In September 2001, when our nation was reeling from the 9/11 attacks, our churches were filled, and the US congress prayed together, publicly. How soon those pleas to our God fell by the wayside. Maybe God is once again wanting our Nation’s attention and using this, yet another crisis to call out to our nation and even to the world, “I am in control”.
God teach us to rely on you for everything in our lives, including our finances. Teach our leaders to be your servants, first. Give us wisdom as a nation to make choices that will honor you and that are wise.
Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a human heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
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2 comments:
Thank you for your wisdom and for your willingness to take the time to offer a godly perspective on the mess our country is in. As I watch people I love suffer from the current conditions, it is easy to keep caught up in the drama and forget that God is there and controlling everything. So, I'll stop just crying for "help" and be specific about what I'm asking for from our leaders and our country, and rest assured that God will hear my prayer for my loved ones.
Two comments about this that come out of the prayer conference last weekend:
It may take something as big as another national financial collapse to really bring revival to our nation...are we willing to live with that if we truly want revival?
When people filled our churches after 9/11, the church wasn't prepared for them, and the vast majority were gone within a month...will we be ready the next time?
Nate
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