Recently, we began talking about A Believer’s Response to Bad Economic News. There’s so much more to talk about along these lines, but today let’s focus on the question we asked:

Does what we believe have the ability to produce what we need?

The starting point for this is that we do believe that God Himself has the ability to supply what we need. This isn’t in question.

But… will He produce and supply it for us?

This can be the harder question. Again, it isn’t just “in Whom” I believe — it’s what I believe about Him that will affect the results that I get…

In the book of Ezra, there’s a moment in Israel’s history that I’ve gone back to again and again these last few months. It’s not the most popular book of the Bible for sermons, so a little background may be useful if you haven’t read it recently.

Ezra was a priest during Israel’s captivity under the Persian empire. He began to search out God’s Word and eventually went to King Artaxerxes and, with great favor upon him, requested — and got — permission and funding to go back to Jerusalem and re-establish the temple and the sacrifices.

He hit a snag, however, when he and the several hundred he recruited to make the journey to Jerusalem with him set out. They had a very dangerous road in front of them, and the trip would ultimately take several months.

In other words, he had a dream. He had discovered his God-given purpose. He had some of what he needed to succeed, but he had a major area of lack — security and protection in his case.

Here was his response:

“Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a straight and right way for us, our little ones, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy along the way, because we had told the king, The hand of our God is upon all them for good who seek Him, but His power and His wrath are against all those who forsake Him.”
(Ezra 8:21-22 AMP)

This passage strikes such a strong chord within me. Where do we turn?

Notice that he and the others needed to know how to proceed because their lives, their little ones, everything they owned, and their God-given purpose was all at stake. This wasn’t a time when a nice-sounding prayer and a religious platitude would help.

Their faith had to manifest a result. Period. End of story. We quite literally wouldn’t be reading this story if they hadn’t received their answer. The risk was real — enemies on the road, uncertainty, failure.

Are you in that kind of situation today? Does your relationship with God have to manifest what you need?

To be continued…

Yesterday we began talking about how someone who believes in the Word of God should respond to bad economic news. We’re going to continue that particular discussion in the days ahead.

For today, however, I wanted to post a quick note because I wanted to share some really great practical advice from the blog of author Tim Ferriss. He has a guest post that serves as a great response to all of the fear in the atmosphere. His guest, Cameron Herold, has some tips on “activity pairing.” In other words, here’s what to do in different cycles of your business.

As someone who has started multiple businesses, I can tell you that I wish I had known:

1. I’m not alone in having emotional ups and downs, and
2. There are great times to perform certain types of work… and terrible times.

Hope this is insightful and helpful to you.  We’ll pick up our main line of thought next time.

Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.
(Proverbs 16:3 AMP)

Last time, we talked about anxiety, stress, and a foreboding that can sometimes overtake our hearts and leave us flustered. As I said, that had happened to me.

In reality, it hadn’t “happened to me.” I had permitted it. This is what we must begin to comprehend. We have in our lives what we permit to exist. In my case, I needed to take some aggressive action — which I did — in order to banish anxiety and worry from my mind and heart.

What’s unfortunate is that these kinds of things have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. When our minds are occupied with the possibility of a negative outcome, then our creativity becomes hampered, our vision becomes less clear, our focus becomes diverted, and we miss opportunities.

But the Scriptures make it clear that we are in charge of our minds. And in fact, the passage I quoted above from Proverbs gives us one way to handle foreboding thoughts. The picture is of a beast of burden which is carrying a load. In fact, when a camel is “loaded up” with its burden, it kneels down and the load is quite literally “rolled” onto its back. This would’ve been a familiar word picture in the time of David and Solomon.

Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.
(Psalms 37:5 AMP)

The thing of it is… when a load is “rolled” onto the camel’s back, there’s absolutely no way for anyone or anything else to carry the weight of that burden.

Yes… what God is saying to us is that we have not been built to handle the mental and emotional stress that we try — particularly in today’s society — to carry. We must roll the load off onto Him and refuse to take the weight of it back upon ourselves.

I won’t kid you. This is a discipline. It takes diligent, attentive effort to ensure that we are not burdened down in this manner. But this is a form of trusting God — not a passive, nonchalant, “Oh well…,” kind of trust.  Instead, it is an active trust. It is an engaged trust. It is an expectant reliance upon Him.

This brings up the tension that exists between what I am to do and what God is to do. There’d be no way to cover that in this setting. However, suffice it to say that engaging God in this manner and actively looking to Him for guidance regarding what we are to do is key.  Too many times we take action out of fear and end up in trouble. The action that God would have us to take will many times be quite different than our instinctive reactions.

Either way… if you’re dealing with an inner storm today — particularly due to financial stress — it is time to decide what you will tolerate in your life… and what you will not. You’re in charge.  What will you do?

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” — Thomas Paine, The Crisis

Anxiety. Worry. Concern. Fear.

All too often, these are the “norm” in times of crisis. Perhaps even worse, they are the norm in times of perceived crisis.

Regardless of whether you’re facing a very real and authentic crisis right now, we live in an environment in which the talk of financial difficulty and stress is all around us.  Terms like, “economic downturn,” “slowdown,” and, “recession,” can be found on the pages of nearly every newspaper and fill the teleprompters of the news media.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve let it affect me this year.  It “dawned” on me this morning that for some time now — days, possibly weeks or even months — there’s been an overarching sense of impending doom that has hovered over my mind and heart.

Why?  I’m not really sure.  But the notion that somehow everything could unravel and leave us (my family and me) “exposed to the elements” of financial disaster has somehow become a daily companion of mine.

It’s a subtle thing.  We’ve watched as a neighbor family packed up all of their stuff and moved out of their house, turning it over to the bank with no warning. We’ve seen other homes in our community go into foreclosure. We hear stories of industries that are suffering and men and women who go scrambling to find work.  Initially, it never even crossed my mind that we could be affected by it.  But somewhere along the way a creeping fear made its way into my mind.  Had it shown up all in one day, I’d have recognized that it wasn’t from me and wouldn’t have tolerated it.  But, like the proverbial frog in the kettle, my thought life has gradually accepted this growing anxiety.

It occurred to me that this was the case today when I read these words:

“The reverent, worshipful fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it rests satisfied; he cannot be visited with [actual] evil.” (Proverbs 19:23 AMP)

Reading, “…he who has it rests satisfied,” I felt like a drop of cool water had landed on my parched tongue.

“Resting” and “satisfied” both seemed so far from my current reality that it really made me stop and think.  I’ve re-read this verse any number of times since then, and I’ve decided that it’s time to calm the inner storm. When the disciples awakened Jesus in the boat during the raging storm, he let everyone know — including the natural environment — what He was going to tolerate.

Since He’s not here (at least in the physical sense), it must be my job (like the disciples whom He rebuked — apparently for not taking charge of the situation themselves) to deal with this storm.  And so, that’s exactly what I’ve done.  And you can, too.

More on this next time…