March of 2020 will forever be etched in my brain. It was the month the Coronavirus completely changed our lives. It sent the Board of Trade and the Dow Jones plummeting. It trigged mass unemployment and a complete shutdown of our way of life. Fear took hold. People started pulling their money out of the markets.
To make sense of it all I went into my library and pulled off the shelf a book that someone gave me years ago called the Death of Money, written by a financial insider. It was very helpful in the sense that it gave me a better grip on the ways the global monetary system works. But at the end of the book, which is basically the “how to survive” chapter, the advise given was truly unsatisfying. Bottom line, his advice to prepare for uncertain times was simply this: invest in gold and undeveloped land, buy a monster box of silver and some hard assets that rely on the stability of the natural resources. That was his answer.
Now, this counsel is not completely irrelevant. Investing money and understanding debt to income ratios, and spreading out your risk capital is wise and prudent. But the thought occurred to me that if this is the big lesson gleaned from our economic troubles – or if the big lesson is that we need to put more faith in the right political people and their proposed strategies – then we are in big trouble as a nation and as a church. We are really no different than the people that survived the Great Depression and became enslaved to the fearful strategies of frugality.
Maybe in light of the uncertainty of life, we will shift our focus from storing up treasures on earth and instead focus on being rich toward God.
Duane Otto
No, this crisis is much bigger than the solutions being offered. I am convinced that this moment provides an unforgettable lesson in clarifying what is really important in terms of material possessions. What really matters in this life and what could we live without during our short time on earth? And so it is my prayer that the current economic crisis would be a life-changing and unforgettable lesson in our values as Christians.
Join with me, if you would, in praying that God will use this time to pry loose from our hearts the things that so easily tempt us. Maybe then we will begin to identify with the vast majority of people around the world for whom life is a perpetual recession. Maybe we will grow in our understanding of what it means truly to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness. Maybe we will be more faithful to lay up treasures in heaven, where recessions never affect our investments. Maybe in light of the uncertainty of life, we will shift our focus from storing up treasures on earth and instead focus on being rich toward God.
Wealth and the freedom to spend have benefits. It can buy medicines, a bigger house, and a life of leisure, gadgets, services, vacations, clothes, and makeup. But at the end of the day, money can’t buy health, a home, wisdom, inner beauty, a life of purpose and meaning, godly children, serenity, neighborly love, and inner peace that comes with a soul resting in the care and counsel of God. As George Lorimer once put it: “It is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy.”