The Up Side of a Down Economy
Nov 23, 2008
I pretty much stopped watching the news since the election because all I can see is people blathering on with doom and gloom about Christmas spending, Black Friday letdowns, job forecasts, stock market volatility, and general economic bleakness. Now, I’m not insensitive to such dismal realities as if economic meltdowns don’t hurt people significantly. Several of my close friends and family members have lost their jobs in this economic turmoil and many more have had their retirement accounts destroyed and home equity lost. When I think of the equity we’ve lost in our own home, I’m sometimes reduced to despair.
But I wonder if there isn’t also an upside to depression, economically speaking? Doesn’t this bring up some interesting points regarding our cultural beliefs, values, and focus? What I hear from people regarding economic realities is the reality of fear—fear of losing ‘security,’ fear of losing ‘stability,’ fear of losing ‘safety,’ fear of losing ‘status,’ etc. If we observe carefully, I think what sits underneath and all around our money is fear. This observation is born out in the constant stream of news, prognosticators, bleary-eyed investment reps, ranting, raving, and anger in response to the ‘crisis’ we face. For almost all of us, our money represents something larger—our ability to retire, our need to provide for our children, security, comfort, the means to achieve and exceed, and a whole host of other things. This is precisely when we should know that money has become a problem, i.e. when it represents something larger that we must fear.
This is why Jesus is so timely and relevant even today when, in a discussion on money, he says, “Fear not little children, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12.32).” Jesus believes that it is a problem for us when we look to money to provide safety, security, stability, and status—at that point money has achieved a whole new status called “god.” It might also be called idol or addiction because we are making money the ultimate determiner of our happiness or our satisfaction. Jesus’ solution to monetary fear is to focus on the generosity of God who takes pleasure at sharing His Kingdom.
I believe the current recession is exposing this fear for many of us. With household debt and government debt at an all time high and with the average household owing more than $9,000 in revolving credit card debt, fear of loss is mounting. These facts betray that most of us live a consumeristic existence. We are driven to buy and consume more because we always feel that we need and must have more. The power we achieve by swiping that card to purchase the latest and best is an intangible asset to our status; the pleasure we feel by checking our retirement accounts belies the true place of our security; the pulsations we have when we determine that we have “made it” prove the position of our satisfaction.
My hope for this recession is that it will expose for us the facades of safety, security, and status—they don’t really exist and they never really did, even when the stock market was at 14,000 and unemployment at 4%--the present crisis proves the impermanence of such ‘gods.’ They cannot satisfy and they will not last. They will continue to demand everything from us and give us smaller and smaller paybacks in return. As the recession exposes our fear and the facades around which we build our lives are broken down, I hope that we will entertain the Jesus who gave up security, stability, and status to join the human race and give His life away (Phil. 2.1-11) because he, the most satisfied man in the world, wanted you to dream bigger dreams and live a bigger life than that lived for long term stability or the idea of retiring to beach and golf, or the notion of a successful business. What he offers is a risky, adventurous, life-shattering, dream-altering, journey to redeem and renew the entire universe which he rules. Will we join in? If we did, I believe there really would be an up side to this recession.