We're going to make it

I am working on a message this week about operating in God’s economy. God’s economy doesn’t work like our economy. In our economy, we can only operate on the things we see. We try to make forecasts and predictions. Everything has to make sense even before we can begin.

Not so with God’s economy. In God’s economy, we act in faith. We act with the long term in mind. We act with the interest of others in mind first. When we operate in that economy those around us are enriched. We are too are enriched—far beyond what we could ever hope or imagine.

So in the week that I’m preparing this, the stock market tanks 300+ points twice, GM says it probably won’t make it, and AIG is still looking for billions of dollars. It looks like the economy around us is falling apart before our very eyes. I have to admit that sometimes those little nagging doubts creep in my head too. “You’re preparing this message, and the visible evidence seems otherwise. Do you really believe what you’re trying to say?” That’s how it went in my head—over and over again.

The other day, a couple of friends and I were relating stories of our grandparents’ generation. We told stories of the Great Depression. How our grandparents did the best they could with what they had. They learned to use the blessings they had been given—from the simple to the profound. They knew how to rely on their sense of how to grow a garden, to rely on each other as a family, to be frugal, to remember our ultimate source of our blessings in God. And this light bulb went off in my head. It sent those shadows of doubt away. It was, quite simply, “We’re going to make it.” I’ve heard that before and I’ve said it before. But it was a truth that drove down even deeper. We’re going to make it. We aren’t the first to face tough times. We aren’t the first ones to feel uncertainty. And more importantly, we aren’t alone. God is with us.

So I pray this week that I’ll remember how to operate in God’s economy. May I act in faith, to act with the long term in mind, to act with the interest of others first. May I not get caught up in what the numbers on a TV screen say as they float around screaming “experts.” May I look to the One who is far more than I can ever hope or imagine. May I always answer those creeping doubts with this simple truth: “We’re going to make it.”