Why a Recession?

“What’s going to happen when we go to Rainbow and there is no food to buy? We will help each other and be there for each other. No Christian should live in the land of plenty while their brothers and sisters somewhere else do not have what they need. God is going to test His people- are they truly a church? Or just a club?” (paraphrase of John Piper: What is a Recession For? Some of God’s Purposes)

The sermon I heard today was so full of truth, hope, and reasons to why we might be enduring a recession in our economy today- so good that I have to post the highlights. I hope it gives those who are feeling fear, anxiety, or restlessness about a lost job, a layoff, or struggles and hardships that are coming out of the recession hope and a softened heart to God’s goodness when it might seem hard to believe He is good.

The most comforting point was that God foresees everything and nothing comes to pass unless He commands it to. God doesn’t let anything happen without a solid purpose. At very least, we can trust that He will not waste a recession or waste the trials some of us are facing. Piper encourages us NOT to waste this recession by seeing some of God’s purposes.

John Piper’s Five reasons that God might allow a recession are as follows:

#1) He intends to expose hidden sin and bring us to repentance.

○ Recessions are good at exposing the sin of waste, selfishness, and fear. It is GRACE that God would expose our true state of heart, that it might lead us to repentance and to receive His mercy and forgiveness.

#2) He intends to awaken the western world to an economic state that 2/3 of the world lives in every day.

○ John Piper read an excerpt from the website http://www.global-prayer-digest.org/ about one family’s situation in Ethiopia.

“It’s 3:00 am, and the Afar father is still awake. The desert night is cold. He snuggles up to his wife and newborn baby to keep them warm. Their stomachs rumble with hunger. Should he slaughter his scrawny goat to feed his wife, hoping she will produce enough milk for their baby? Or should he beseech the clan elders to move again, in search of weeds for the goat, or maybe even some fresh water? They are fortunate; both his wife and their baby survived the birth.

The Afar people have the highest maternal fatality rate in the world. Women give birth without benefit of sterile conditions, or even clean water. Of the babies born alive one-third die before age five. Afar people roam throughout one of the most desolate places on earth: the Ethiopian desert. Drought and malnutrition make them vulnerable to diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, conjunctivitis, and other water-borne illnesses. Of 13 million Afar people, three million are infected with HIV/AIDS. They have never been taught basic hygiene or sterilization techniques. Sources of clean water are few and far between.

Nomadic and clannish, the Afar people are suspicious of any outsiders. Ninety-five percent of the Afars are professing Muslims.

* Pray for non-threatening missionaries to reach the Afar, so they might receive His truth. Pray for Afar elders to experience Jesus in dreams and visions. Pray that Christian radio broadcasts in the Afar language will show them the way to Jesus, and also include teachings on how to address their many health problems.-JWS”

#3) He intends to relocate the roots of our joy and His grace, His goods, not our money, and His worth, not our wealth.

○ We so often forget that our joy doesn’t ultimately come from money or wealth, but from His grace, His worth, and the things that He has given us. During a recession, we will have to fight to remember that our joy is not found because of an easy life with easily available health care and food supply, but found in God’s love and mercy poured out on us.

#4) He intends to awaken us to waste, mistreatment, and over consumption.

○ A recession brings to light the mistreatment of resources and people through exposing greed, selfishness, and overconsumption of some, which leaves others at the receiving end of selfish hoarding. It brings to light unethical business dealings and the need for Christians to offer relief to those who have been mistreated and who lack resources to get help. Many have a chance to repent of wrong spending and the wrong motives of their heart and receive the grace of Christ.

#5) He intends for His mission in the world to advance- the spread of the gospel and growth of the church when the resources of the church are the least they have been in a long time.

○ A recession is a time to think about giving your life away to relieve the suffering, especially the eternally suffering.
○ It is biblical to give generously (not just financially) during suffering, not out of duty, but out of overflowing joy! 2 Corinthians 8: 1-4 shares the story of the church in Macedonia, facing harsh poverty, who gave generously for the relief of their brothers and sisters in Christ. “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints- and this, not as we expected, but that gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.”

God is so good that He included so many stories of despair, struggle, and near death experiences of people in the bible for us to read about, identify with, and gain a right perspective from. The apostle Paul was quite possibly the most persecuted and afflicted Christian to ever have lived, and He wrote to His churches that He was ministering to from often near- death circumstances. He wrote with His brother Timothy to the church of Corinth out of extreme affliction, and He helps us see something good about it: “… For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Cor. 1:8-9)

I have found myself praying at times in my life that God would show me more of Him, that I would rely on Him, that He would show me that He is all I really have, but I think about the potential of losing my comfort, losing my job, losing security, losing cleanliness, losing health care, losing food, losing all of these things that so readily sustain me in America- and it is easy to despair and think things like: What if I can’t pay off that loan? What if I have to move? What if I can’t provide for my family? What if I am forced to ask for help? What if, in the Apostle Paul’s words, I am “so utterly burdened beyond my strength that I despair of life itself?”

Now, I’m not experiencing any anxiety or fear of the future right now because I am not currently facing hardship or a loss of my job due to the economic crisis, but I will say that I am clinging to the security of a job or a home, or clean water and food- very loosely right now. Because its not guaranteed at the end of the day. I want to be like the church in Macedonia, who, even amidst affliction and severe poverty, experienced abundant joy because of the grace of Christ.

The fact that God has had mercy on me and promised me eternal life through Christ is the only hope that lasts. If or when I face mere survival in my physical body on this earth, how much more will I hope for a life that is better than this?

Perhaps God is bringing us through a recession to show us the reality that this life isn’t it. This world is a fallen world. It is not as beautiful, glorious, or steadfast as Heaven and the glory that we can one day share with God forever.

If we have to go through trials of broken marriages, lost jobs, and unguaranteed health and security to urge us to hope more in heaven, then we should brace ourselves. Brace ourselves for the trials to come, yet dance with overflowing joy that the trials are not the end- a life in God’s Kingdom with Christ who gave Himself as a ransom for many- is the timeless hope we can have.

How humbling to feel inadequate and have nowhere to run but into the arms of God, surrendered and broken. Yet, how difficult will it be to find hope in Him rather than in the temporary blessings of this life? This is perhaps my biggest daily struggle, but I wonder how an economic crisis will reveal even more how much I put my hope in false circumstances rather than God.  If this is a means for Him to help us rely on Him more deeply and to feel His presence more sweetly, then what a good God He is.  He will never leave us or forsake us.  Not even death can separate Him from us because it is He who raises the dead, and this can be our ultimate hope when we “despair of life itself.”

I get excited about the social justice that might come forth through the broken economic infrastructure.  I don’t want to sound all Miss-America-like and wish for world peace, but I pray for a savior to reach the world and restore the sin that has messed it up, and that even if the world is not in a peaceful estate, that many would feel the peace of their soul resting in the forgiveness and grace of God- and that this would be sweeter than any earthly thing.