All-Weather Blessings
These are tough economic times all around. The same rules and assumptions
that used to be part of the wall paint of life don't seem to apply any more.
Housing values don't just automatically go up. The next stop on the Dow
Jones index may not be a thousand more, perhaps a thousand less. Dividends
that used to pay like clockwork may now be calculated at pennies on the
share, if at all.
So when we open our Bibles and read, "Blessed is he who has regard for the
weak," the poor, the helpless (Psalm 41:1), our minds almost immediately
begin thinking up disqualifiers. Sure, if we had the money. Sure, if milk
and gasoline weren't so expensive. Sure, if our 401(k) was still promising
us an ample retirement.
But the Bible's principles for sound money management are not dependent on
the ebbs and flows of the stock market. Just because prices are up and wages
are down, biblical truth is not temporarily suspended. Lean years don't
exempt us from pursuing God's way of doing things. In fact, it's in times
like these—when real need is a lot closer to your front door than it may
have seemed in days past—that the blessing of giving is actually the
greatest. Your generous, sacrificial acts of service and care
in Christ's name have more potential for touching hearts now than they ever
did. You can take that to the bank.
Pray this prayer: Father, I get worried sometimes about where our financial
picture is heading. But you have called us to be much more concerned for
people than money. Help me to always keep this in mind.
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