finding hope amid panic, National Debt and threats of economic collapse

Waiting for rain to drop from here

The drought is breaking records here in Texas. And breaking farmers, ranchers, dairy production.


The other day, driving 65mph on an Interstate Highway, I saw a tire catch fire on a U-haul truck trailer until I saw flames shooting off the rim. Yesterday, I saw three fire rescue trucks race past our front yard, to a neighboring county needing help. Making our 30 minute one-way trip to small-town, USA, I'm always finding another black, charred grass next to black tar-topped roads.


More signs of distress.

We've kept a record 21 days over 100 degrees, in a row. More heat, means more fire hazard, less water, more injuries, less grace, more irritants, less interaction, and more risk.

And now, a National Debt looms and threatens to suck the life out of our economy, creating droughts in already lean pocket books and drying up much-needed resources.

Kindof like here in Texas, where some have a shriveled up hope, looking to the future with a skeptical eye, weighing the pros and the cons, and the cons winning.

When we look at the world and all it's doom and gloom, we begin to think this is all there is too life. We want to run, hide, seek safety, find shelter from a falling sky.

A partially dried up pasture



It reminds me of someone God told to go and buy some real estate in a collapsing economy. In fact, this piece of land was to be taken over by an invading country.

But it wasn't China.

And while the invaders breathed down the neck of this country, a collapsed economy teetering on disaster which had already begun, God told a mere prisoner, go and buy it.

Here in Texas, we have grasshoppers like swarming locusts which hop in our faces and our mouths as we drive our little motorized buggy to our back pastures.

A pestilence as come upon the land, a swaggering financial institution threatens to topple day-to-day, food prices soar so that people are growing more of their own, and each day looks more grim by the news of what is the world.

And yet, if has God called you to go and do something crazy by the world's standards, what's stopping you? Has He asked you to go against the grain, against safe and sane, and go by faith to take hold of that promise He's given you, even if it doesn't make sense now?

That's what Jeremiah did.

By faith, he bought land, signed the papers, sealed the deed, had the witnesses, only for it to be handed over in captivity and ruin. And oh, he questioned God on it. Sooner, than later, he mentioned mighty things God had done, he went on and on about God marvelous works.

Yet, he couldn't help but falter here,

"Look, the siege mounds! They have come to the city to take it; and the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword and famine and pestilence. What You have spoken has happened; there You see it!  And You have said to me, O Lord GOD, “Buy the field for money, and take witnesses”!—yet the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’” Jeremiah 32: 24,25

Yet.

Yet, You've given the city away!

And still You said, "Buy the field for money...."

Why?

We wonder, with Jeremiah, why You'd call someone, you or me, to something which seems so fool-hardy, so unconventional. Why risk it all for nothing?

You tell us it's because You have a Promise to do good. Even if it comes later, than sooner.

And I've been here, finding beauty in the courageous expenditure of Faith.

Because I'm learning, Faith is the purchase of Promise.

By Faith, we have currency needed for Heaven's exchange.

Faith becomes the active commerce by which we lay claim to the Promised deeds. And I'm awed by the beauty of this interchange.

Faith is the way we are able to stand in firey trials, run out on a limb, dance in the glory of Promises not yet seen but coming, one day. This is how you're able to do it despite naysayers.

Because it's not about Debt ceilings, raising interest rates, bank loan freezes, foreclosures, of how the world seems on the brink of collapse and is paralyzed with fear. It's about our economy of Faith and spending it. Stepping out in it means it'll be His glory and not the world's or ours....

And definitely not Congress' or people who live in big, white houses.



 Over here at Bonnies...