A woman in New York on Wall Street's infamous Black Monday said, "If God is trying to get my attention, He's certainly going about it in the wrong way." I'm sure she hasn't thought much about God since the last depression. As I considered the reactions of people to dramatic financial losses it made me think about the way we as Christians can face our own Black Mondays.
1. Loss
Loss has a way of making us turn our eyes up. "Nothing has happened to you that is not common to man" - so many of us want to live with the "spoiled brat" syndrome in which we not only have a personal relationship with God but a preferential one. People seeing the Marines going into Guadalcanal said, "You fellows really must have been losers." They replied, "No, we are the best. The job is tough and they sent us." Sometimes Christians need to take loss so that they can show others, particularly non-Christians who are losing, what it is to have Christian strength during a loss.
2. Anxiety
Most of our anxiety is prefaced with "what if?" And then we think of the worst scenario, believing the present will continue to get worse. The scripture says, "Be anxious for nothing but with thanksgiving make your request known unto God." Oswald Chambers, my favorite theologian, has an interesting comment when he runs into a difficult problem: "It will be interesting to see how God works this out." Another verse says "He will keep you in perfect peace.. .the peace that passes all understanding."
3. Fear
"He has not given you the spirit of fear but of power - love - self-control." The spirit of fear means that you're afraid of everything. Certainly there are specific things we should be afraid of but not carry with us the spirit of fear in which we are afraid of everything. That is not our mental attitude as Christians. The normal mental posture is to have power and love and self-control. "Let not your heart be troubled!" I this is not a suggestion; it is a command. I had lunch with the president of a company who has his weight well under control and when I asked him if it was easy he told me he had to work at it all the time. Obviously it's not one of my high priorities but emotional balance is. And I will confess I have to work just as hard at emotional balance as he has to work at weight. When Christ said, "let not your heart be troubled," He didn't say something that I couldn't do, because He does not give me a command that is impossible. It isn't easy, but it is possible.
4. Regret
I know people who are crying about the past. There's not a thing in the world they can do about it. The money is gone. They made a decision. They had a financial accident, but they can't seem to forget and move on. Paul says, "forgetting the things that are behind, I press forward." Maxey Jarman and I held a seminar in 1974 for wealthy young men who had gone broke. We entitled it "For Losers But Not Quitters." We may have spilt the milk, even all of it, but the cow isn't dead. Get up and start milking!
5. Depression
It's easy to become depressed, particularly if we become immobilized and start feeling sorry for ourselves. Sympathy is a dangerous emotion, and while I believe in giving people comfort I give them very little sympathy, because it's addictive. The scripture says, "Casting all your care upon him, for He cares for you." It is much more productive to cast our care upon Christ than upon our friends. Frankly, He can do more about it.
6. Despair
This is the end of the line. Some of us were talking at breakfast why there have not been more suicides in this debacle. One is simply architecture, because you can't get the windows open. But another is the prevalence of chapter 11 which is now accepted. There was an earlier time when debt was a moral liability and could not be relieved so easily. And I think another practical reason is that with the margin at fifty percent we didn't have too many people totally wiped out as we did in '29. We think of the verse "store not up for yourselves treasures where moth and rust and thieves can get at them." Paul said he was many times abused but never in despair. Despair is not an acceptable Christian emotion.
7. Greed
The president of a seminary wrote this little blurb which he sent to me: "I started to sell because I thought the market was high but I decided to stay and milk it for every dollar I could make, and my greed has required of me my financial soul." Then he quoted the verses about the man who said that he would tear down his barns and build bigger ones and heard the judgment "thou fool, tonight thy soul shall be required of thee."
The woman who mistakenly thought that her financial losses were God's way of getting her attention point us to our own view of God's activity in our lives. What peace we can have in knowing that while we are not immune from loss, we do not have to choose implosion because we have hope. We do not have to despair, or live in fear and anxiety because we are part of a much greater process. And above all, we don't have to grab with greedy hands and hearts because we know that He is our provider.
