As 2008 ends, I wish it good riddance! What a tumultuous year it has been.
Some observations….
In our personal lives, my job was eliminated in March. It is rarely a good thing when the head of retail banking and the head of H.R. walk into your office unannounced. On the bright side, I was able to retain employment by relocating and get a substantial raise in the process. Regardless, we had to move out of a home that we planned on being in for the long term. The job loss was only one of the factors in us moving, and was the proverbial “final straw”, but it has been emotionally difficult for us especially since we still own that house and keep making payments on it with no buyers in sight and the need for a new home near my new job looming. I am optimistic, at least by my standards, when looking at next year from a work standpoint. I really like my new job and employer, and once we get moved I should be home by 5:00 almost every day. A lot will depend on the economic circumstances, while my new employer is a small, privately held firm and somewhat insulated from the financial crisis, we are a financial services firm and 2009 is shaping up to be another rough year in our business. Once we shed the house up north that will be an emotional hurdle we will have gotten over, so that is important. I am optimistic that in our family, 2009 will be a far better year than 2008.
We have come to a crisis point in our faith lives, on the one hand becoming rapidly more and more disenchanted with institutionalized Christianity, feeling somewhat adrift from the comfortable and familiar church based faith and yet on the other hand in many ways our home discipleship has improved dramatically and with it our Christian walk. Family Scripture reading and prayer has become far more regular, my wife and I continue to strive for Scripture time together and prayer as a couple. In spite of being unmoored from the institutional church where we were comfortable (complacent?), I sense a great deal of progress in our spiritual lives. Being able to study the Word without the constriction of the institutional church framework has led to a clearer understanding of a lot of issues. The challenge will continue to be making sure that we prioritize time for the Word and prayer in our lives in spite of the inherently hectic nature of life in a family of 10. Yet nothing is more precious or more deserving of our every effort.
The church, especially in America, quite frankly is in dire straits. Biblical literacy by any measure must be considered to be at an all time low and showing no sign of improving. Churches are springing up all over the place but the pattern seems to be that the bigger they are, the less Gospel they preach. Much of the church seems to be going through the motions. Most of the big, traditional denominations are apostate and the ones that are not are getting there. The Southern Baptist Convention, flush from it’s victory in the inerrancy war, is increasingly a political entity and we see a simultaneous growing effort among many top leaders in the SBC to attack Calvinism (and Calvinists in the SBC ranks) and a rapid degeneration into a Charles Finney inspired, decisional regeneration based, “evangelism” that produces hordes of false converts and membership rolls full of unsaved people who never show up at church. It might actually not be a bad thing to see the SBC collapse, but if it is to survive in a Gospel mission existence, the real hope is that the men being turned out from Southern Seminary by the hundreds will view ministry differently than their old school predecessors. Ultimately though, tinkering around the edges is not going to fix much of anything.
What can you say about the state of the world other than it is proof we live in a post-Genesis 3 world? Islamic terrorism still strikes around the world seemingly unabated as the attacks in Mumbai demonstrated. The global economy is in the toilet and honestly it is not getting better. Homes selling for $200,000 are now selling for $125,000 and there is not a floor in view for home prices. Banks are getting more unstable every day in spite of huge cash infusions from the taxpayers. The Detroit automakers stand at the brink of collapse and the clock is ticking for them to show how they are going to become profitable. America has elected the most liberal president in modern history, and despite the positives from the unprecedented election of the first President who is not a white male in our nations history, we still are facing a perfect storm of an overwhelming liberal, socialist leaning President and congress and a global economic crisis that has many people willing to trade their liberty for a false sense of security provided by the government. Unless the Republican party, what is left of it in power anyway, grows a new spine and stands against unrestrained deficit spending and explosive expansion of the government, we are looking at a permanent increase in the already crippling size of the Federal government. If the New Deal of FDR and the Great Society programs of LBJ have taught us anything, they have taught us these two lessons: the government is completely unequipped to improve the lives of individual Americans (nor is it the Constitutional role of the Federal government to do so) and once a government agency comes into existence, it is nigh impossible to reduce it or eliminate it. If Obama gets his way and we start down the road to universal, socialized medicine we will never be able to get rid of it no matter how disastrous it is. Entrenched interests and perceptions of getting “something for nothing” will make it impossible to undo huge intrustions of the government in our lives. It is hard to look at the geo-political and economic outlook for 2009 and see much positive.
I am by nature a pessimistic person, someone who could never hold to a postmillennial view that things are getting better. That is probably a good thing in some ways. I am susceptible to getting too comfortable with this world and I need constant reminders that Christ didn’t die on a cross so I could have the latest X-Box game and a secure retirement account. What I am confident in is that Christ is still Lord. He still is seated at the right hand of the Father, and that nothing is outside of His control and indeed nothing happens contrary to His will. He knows the big picture and I have such a limited view that the only rational thing for a Christian to do is to proclaim the Gospel, stand against unrighteousness and trust in Christ. To do otherwise is frankly foolish. 2009 may be the year that Christ returns for His Bride, or it may not be. Either way, we exist to glorify God and so we should seek to do that each day. If we are faithful in that, He will take care of the big stuff.
Happy New Year!
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