Market Meltdown

Market Meltdown

I imagine as with the rest of the world, you may be looking at the market news more frequently. Just today I heard Iceland may be bankrupt. I know some of my peers 401K have turned into a 201K! The markets are in transition. Most likely, this recession and economic downturn will not be quickly fixed with bailouts and the lowering of interest rates. We have become a debtor nation. In the Scriptures, we’re told the debtor is slave to the lendor.

While I don’t have a lot of answers I do have tons of questions: What does it mean when America is a slave to the lenders of the world? What is the message God is trying for us to hear? Not only as a nation but as the church? If we have a sustained global downturn, who gets hurt the most? It’s not the middle class. What is our response?


I’m sure you each have your own strategies for dealing with the global slowdown and the chaos of the last few weeks. For me, in my office, this past week I had a sacred moment that came upon me and in fact, overwhelmed me with emotion. Two young men shared with me some temptation they were dealing with. In that moment as they were sharing, I was quickly reminded of what my father-in-law told me twenty plus years ago before I entered the pastorate He said, “Dave, be careful of the big three: money, women and pride.” As I recalled his words with these two promising leaders, I deeply love, the words from I John 2:15-17 flooded my soul.

Love not the world
Neither the things in the world. For anyone that loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him. For al that is in the world,
The Lust of the Flesh.
The Lust of the Eyes.
And the Pride of Life.
Is not of the Father but is of the world.

And the world passes away and the lusts thereof. . . But he that does the will of God abides forever.

As I quoted those words, I literally felt God’s presence much like I did when I first read those words in Telluride, Colorado at a youth retreat, in the middle of the Rockies. I vividly remember it was as if God spoke to me in the midst of the chaos of my parent’s divorce and the fracturing of our home, the loss of our socio-economic standing: “ . . and the world passes away but he that does the will of God abides forever.” It was an invitation into an unshakeable kingdom, a bed-rock of safety in the midst of a long nightmare.