Threatening Times

These days are probably the most threatening of any in our lifetime. We're being told that the financial crisis we are facing is the worst since the Great Depression. One out of ten Americans is either behind on their house payment or already in foreclosure. A USA Today headline this week said that it will take decades for the housing market to regain the value lost over the past few years. Retirement accounts have been decimated so that those approaching retirement now have no choice but to continue working. Some retirees have had to go back to work. President-Elect Obama recently predicted that millions more will lose their jobs next year. Terrorism against our country on a horrific scale looms as a greater possibility than we would have ever imagined ten years ago.

What's the answer? How are we to move through such times as these? At the risk of sounding simplistic, the answer really is easy. In fact, it's the only answer. Moving through situations that threaten our lives requires that we come back to basics and consider a few fundamental questions.

1. Is there a God?
2. Is He omnipotent?
3. Does He love me?

It sounds almost irreverent to consider such kindergarten level questions. In good times, the answer to each is obvious, but in the midst of circumstantial meltdown, our feelings sometimes suggest a different answer. That's why we need to go back to basics and desperately cling to the only thing worth clinging to - eternal truth.

There is a God who sits on His throne and sovereignly rules over the affairs of this world. Nothing escapes His attention or is happening outside His authority. The world is in his hands. This God has proven His love to us in the person of Jesus Christ. He knows about your job, your mortgage, your family . . . and He's in the situation with you.

From within the concentration camp at Auschwitz, Corrie Ten Boom once said, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." Sometimes it all comes down to that knowledge. It's all we have, but it's enough.

Where is God when it seems our world is falling apart? He's right here, in the midst of it with us. Emmanuel, God with us, is guiding our steps even when we are on a dark path and can't see the way ahead. Even when we can't see what steps we will take if this or that happens, we can walk with Him knowing that He will guide our steps one at a time.

Sometimes the outlook is so bleak that the only view that can offer us any relief is the uplook. And that's not a bad place to look. "Set your affection on things above and not on the earth, for you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:2-3).