by Dennis Gundersen
In our recent election, some candidates for office sought to win your vote and mine by doing their best to persuade us that our economic situation in America is in a horrendous state and our lives are full of misery (which, of course, they will repair if elected). “It’s the economy, stupid” and “It’s the worst economy in 50 years!” were oft-heard mottos for one successful campaign in 1992. Even at the present time, during somewhat of an economic upturn, some candidates and leaders, rather than inspire us to excellence, instead often do our whining for us about how scarce jobs are – and they hasten to add, “Oh, what a miserable pittance of wages the available jobs pay!”
All this is being said in the nation which is, by far, the wealthiest nation in the world, hands down, by people who live in the greatest prosperity and luxury at any time in her history. These facts, being interpreted in this way, ought to seize the attention of Christian parents who want to pass on a righteous world-view to their children.
Christians, of all people, are those whose thinking ought to be based in reality, not fantasy or rumor; and whose thoughts ought to be according to truth, unadulterated by the fretful grumblings of man about near-perfect conditions not being perfect enough. In other words, get real. Come on! Are we truly to believe that we’re living on the brink of deprivation, need and misery? Or have a lot of us talked ourselves into listening to a lie, perpetuated by those who do not know our Lord? “With food and covering, be content” wrote the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 6. Let’s see… reality check here on my heart…if my heart was content, while possessing those two items – food and covering – would I still be repeating the mantra of my neighbors and (sigh) now half of our national leaders, that the economy is in a deplorable condition?
Brett had bought into it. Sitting across the table from me, Brett’s worry was obvious, etched into every feature of his face. My skilled, middle-aged Christian friend was seeking counsel from his pastor (that would be me) about his future. He was genuinely worried – about his career, his family’s future, the family finances, keeping the house; the list of worries just went on and on. After all, who could even surmise how bad things might go if he lost this job? What if? He had been laid off once before, years ago, and was now hearing worrisome rumors of how his current employer might be struggling financially, and so once again, layoffs may be around the corner. “The economy is just so awful right now”, he moaned.
Of course, what never seems to come up is that, immediately after his previous layoff, within a week he had another job (the one he has now). The Lord had provided.
Another friend in his 40’s, Wayne, had bought into it, too. Wayne tells me of his investments in the stock market, with shattered grief in his eyes and a quiver in his voice that reveals the intensity of suffering this has put him through. Can you imagine such agonies as this? His stocks had decreased in value by almost $100,000 over the last couple of years! Meaning he now was the sole owner of a mere $600,000 or so in his IRA and other accounts. Such a pathetic pittance, after a lifetime of working for so long. Whatever would he do? “It’s such a terrible economy.”
Still another, Jay, has faced a painful choice not long ago: either his department accepts that many of them will be laid off, or all employees in his department must accept a 17% pay cut from the company. They took the latter route. For Jay, this means, his annual salary has declined down below a triple digit figure for the first time in over five years. So now, he has to settle for only making a salary in the $80’s. What a crying shame. What terrible, terrible times we live in. And the company is struggling enough, he may have to accept an offer from a competitor and move his family across the country.
Times are tough, huh?
Now, I know that not every Christian homeschooling family makes a salary comparable to this. But the point is, many of us whose needs have always been met, and then some, have still contributed to the national whine, haven’t we? And as for Paul’s exhortation to be content with food and covering, nobody I know is even close to having to settle for that.
OK, so perhaps these United States have recently weathered one of the more difficult economies recent decades. But I expect the Lord’s people, who have eternity in their sights, at least would have some skill at taking a long-range view. Something tells me that we can look at this differently. Has not this astonishingly prosperous nation in which we live enjoyed the highest standard of living in world history? For a very long time. So who do we think we’re fooling? When we refer to this economy as “the worst” in any fashion, it’s like speaking of the worst bar of gold that I’ve ever held or the worst chocolate I ever tasted. Where do we come up with the entitlement to feel a right to grumble in the absence of utter perfection?
If we’re going to be genuine and truthful, we need to teach our children that we’re living in the best economy in 6,000 years. Yes, I take the young earth creationist viewpoint (see James Ussher’s “Annals of the World”). Whether you hold that view or not, just humor me on this, so you won’t miss the point. If any persons across all world history ever had no right to moan and groan for a moment about what measure they had known from the generous hand of God, we are the ones!
The peoples of other nations in our world would absolutely love to experience – once in their whole lifetime – one of our bad years.
So, Christian parent, you must not sit back after dinner and allow your family to just mindlessly absorb the discontented, fretful, worrisome, anxious, unthankful blabber of The Evening News. Be a righteous man, Dad, and teach your children to think Biblically about what reaches their ears! The world constantly tries to press us into their mold and we must not let it happen. We walk by faith. That enables us to interpret everything differently than the world does.
What quality of faith do you show your children, when you lose a great deal of money? When stock values drop? When the worth of your IRA diminishes? When company benefits you’d learned to take for granted are withdrawn? Who ever heard of “company benefits” before America, anyway? Ask the Roman slave who read Paul’s letters who his health insurance provider is. (“What’s ‘health insurance?’”)
Consider the viewpoint of James 1:9: writing to people who never had even a smidgen of what you have almost always had, the Apostle writes: “But let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position” – the “brother of humble circumstances” is a Christian man who has little of the things of this world. Very little. Probably most of those so addressed were slaves. No, James does not cut him the slack of a presumed right to groan over his lowly position. He is to glory in his high position! “Which is?”, you ask? Which is, to realize how his poverty and enslaved condition was so soon to end and how it was not really very representative of his true identity, which would become manifest in a moment of time: that he is a child of the King of kings! He possesses every blessing in heaven and earth. It’s just that he has to wait a little while before he can hold that inheritance in his hands.
What side of your faith do you show your children when dramatic job changes come into your life? Why not turn those into an occasion to demonstrate confident faith, that the God who has supplied all your needs every day until now, will do so again, through new employment, when He deems it right to bring it you – perhaps after testing and purifying your faith by fire.
Do we even have a right to say that we’ve experienced “testing by fire”, when we still get to live in our fine houses, drive our own cars, and eat like kings, while we await to see how the Lord will provide? Or maybe, He’s provided already, even as we’re wondering when He will.
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