They're some of the wildest roller coasters in America - Goliath, Titan, Maverick, Millennium Force. Oh yeah - and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The American economy is taking us for one wild and unpredictable ride right now.
Our houses aren't worth what they were...gas pumps give us sticker shock...credit card debt is going crazy...and economic indicators are tanking.
In just one day, the stock market had a dizzying 600-point swing. After which one grizzled Wall Street veteran said: "Grab something to hang onto!"
Great advice. It's just hard to find something that isn't shaking right now. It's a good time to be asking one of those bedrock life questions - "Where's my security?" Or "what can I hang onto when everything's shaking - my finances...my family...my health?"
The day my Dad was headed for the open heart surgery from which he would not return, he knew what to grab onto. He asked me to read the 23rd Psalm for him. It begins, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." That's solid stuff. Because if your trust is in the God of the universe to ultimately take care of you, you're hanging onto something - actually Someone - who can't be touched by a recession, a depression, a divorce, even death.
In those words my dad had me read to him, it says, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me." Even facing my last breath, the end of earth and the beginning of eternity, "I will fear no evil." Why? Because I belong to the One I'll meet on the other side.
The Bible offers this love relationship with Almighty God that has an awesome difference from every other love - it's "unloseable." As God said in His Book, "Nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39). Nothing. No September 11. No financial disaster. No funeral, no disability, no human betrayal. One safe place in a troubling world.
That security is free to us. It was expensive for Jesus. The Bible says we've pretty much "dissed" God by deciding we'll drive instead of Him. It's that "sin" thing. And it puts a wall between us and the only "Unloseable" there is. But God spent it all to get us back - He spent His Son. Like it says in the Bible, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
When we decide to put our life in His hands, we're forgiven and we belong to God. Finally safe. Really secure. Yes, we've grabbed onto the God who runs it all. But better yet, He's holding us. And He isn't going to let go. I can't tell you what it's like to have Him to hold onto when the bottom's dropped out. There's this PEACE. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.