Buck Up

I usually wake in the morning to a news-talk station. But it hasn't been anything worth waking up to lately. If it isn't all about how the stock market is down and the world economy's in the tank, it's about how the stock market is up and that means in another day or so it'll be really down, putting the economy even deeper in the tank.

Some commentators seem to take a sordid pleasure in exclaiming for two hours straight how This Is Just a Taste of It and It'll Get Unimaginably Worse Regardless of Who's Elected President, etc., etc., etc.

How incredibly, uselessly depressing. What I'm not hearing is what any of us can do about it. Listening to these guys, nothing. We're all going to hell in a handbasket and they won't even let us enjoy the slide.

This has had an odd, counterintuitive effect on me.

I've not been feeling too lively for quite awhile, not having a proper job and surrounded with house-renovation mess that will get a lot messier before it gets better. But with things in the general culture being the way they are, I've decided to buck up.

Why? Because since all these temporal props are being kicked out from under all of us, I'm getting it through my thick head to rely on the only solid foundation there is or ever has been, which is almighty God revealed in His Son Jesus Christ.

Did Jesus ever promise His followers would always be prosperous and well-fed? No. Did He ever swear we'd always have plenty in the bank and our own roof over our heads? No. Did He ever covenant with us that we'd die in our beds of peaceful old age? No, again.

But He did promise that where He is, there His servants would be. He said that we should be of good courage, for He has overcome the world. He said we should lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, that will never wear out or rot or decay. He said all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Him, and He is with us to the end of the age.

If Jesus had been only a man, those promises wouldn't mean beans. But given that He's the Son of God, with all the perquisites and endowments that that implies, His mere presence with us gives us more than the most healthy economy ever could, and that's even before you tally in all the other blessings of heaven and eternal life.

So I've decided to get my vision straight and buck up. I don't say Jesus is gonna get me a job, but letting Him give me perspective will get me further towards that goal. And maybe things will get as bad as the radio pundits say. Maybe. But we humans can't screw things up so badly as to keep God from bringing good out of it.

And in the meantime, I'm not messing with things I can't help. My radio alarm now set to the classical station.