Greek Fire

The other morning I was standing in my shower, happily singing in tongues to a tune that reminded me of liturgical singing, and I thought that I would sing out in English as the Spirit led me.

The night before I had been wondering about and researching what the possible consequences would be to Greece defaulting on their debt and how I should be preparing for a chain reaction that might effect our economy and banking system.

At church the day before that I sat behind a pastor I knew whose wife is Greek and they had just returned from a vacation visiting family in Greece.  While they were there people were only allowed to withdraw a maximum of 67 dollars U.S. per day from their bank accounts. The economy of Greece is only about the size of Alabama's, 2 per cent of the Eurozone, but they have a huge debt they cannot pay and there are several other European countries with unsustainable debt loads waiting in the wings. If the dominoes start to fall a banking crisis could lead to other continents and then to the U.S. in a very short time.

This is what the Lord led me to sing in English:

"There are ways that seem right to man.

There are ways that are right to God."

Pretty simple huh? It would have been nice to have gotten more but that's all that seemed right.

The thought was pretty much what I had read in Proverbs the night before and perhaps that was the connection my brain or my spirit or both were making:

The plans of the heart belong to man,

But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.  (Proverbs 16:1)

The financial crisis in Greece did not just happen over night. The country is run by stringent communist who have for years paid for all the wonderful benefits they provide for the population through borrowed money. Eventually they could not afford even the interest payments and their creditors have demanded that they make major concessions such as reducing benefits so they can have the means to pay what they owe. The communist government actually has a lot of potential assets because they own just about all the major industries as well as a lot of swell property but the hard liners do not want to privatize or to encourage a capitalist system that would develop anything for a profit.

The tactic for the Greeks now and for their socialist brethren in other countries including America is to ignore the fact that debts ultimately do need to be paid and instead ask the creditors how they can do something so awful to all those poor people in Greece. But the day to pay up has come and whatever happens from here out will not be pretty.

There will come a day when the U.S. will have to pay up. Apart from our tremendous current debt (over 18 trillion and growing) and our future unfunded social promises (100 trillion by conservative accounting, or over 200 trillion by global warming type accounting) we have a shrinking per cent of the population working (67.4 per cent compared to 70.9 per cent in 2008) to support an ever increasing per cent of the population that receives government benefits (i.e. there are now over 47 million getting food stamps).

How do we make up the difference? Well, we can reduce spending but that won't happen in today's politics until there is a major crisis. We can increase taxes (not for you and me but for the rich. When the majority votes to take more money from a small minority I call that stealing but politics calls it "fairness") We can grow the economy, get more people working in the private sector and thus paying taxes. But then some people might get rich and that's no good. So,you guessed it. We make up the difference by borrowing more money.

If a number of countries get caught up in this current debt crisis and countries start to pull out their money from U.S. banks things could quickly get ugly here. I am not saying it is going to happen soon but I am saying that things do not always stay the same and the wise thing is to think things through so that you will have a plan and not need to panic when and if the time comes.

What makes me wonder is that there have been major setbacks in the markets aligned with a major Jewish feast in the fall of 2001 and the fall of 2008. This fall marks the end of another 7 year period and is also the end of the series of blood moons and eclipses happening in the last 2 years.

What also makes me wonder is that I sense a tidal shift of anti Christian feeling. Although I pray that it will lead to revival and to a greater maturity for the current church I can also see a further falling away from orthodox beliefs and an oncoming persecution for those that hold fast to Biblical truth.

Pastor Craig Miller wrote a blog post on May 30th which had a quote from the retired Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, a theological conservative within the Roman Catholic Church who was not afraid to express his views on issues from abortion to the gay rights movement. "He often expressed concern over what he believed was the eroding of religious liberty in the U.S."

Cardinal George died on April 17 and here is a statement he made before his death.

"It is likely that I will die in my bed. My successor will die in prison. His successor will die executed in the public square."

George goes on to see the Catholic Church eventually picking up the pieces of a broken society and I see rather the second coming of Jesus but I was struck because we both have the same concern. Social norms are rapidly changing and the government and courts are and will heavily penalize those who express opposition.

We are not yet to the point where mobs will drag us out of our beds because of our Christian beliefs but we are naive if we believe that it could never happen here. Just this week I read a political article shared on FB which used these interesting phrases to describe certain presidential candidates: "Religious tribalism", "Folksy nonsense about Jesus", "Dark Ages version of Christianity", "prehistoric ideas on social issues" and "ugly bigotry toward the LGBT community". To you and me those thoughts may seem far to the fringe but to a lot of the younger population in our country this is what they hear day in and day out and it is gospel.

What is surprising is not that the world does not agree with traditional conservative Christian beliefs but that those who say they value tolerance are less and less tolerant toward Christian's who do not remain silent in word or deed. And they seem to be getting more emotional about it. But I guess this is what should be expected, isn't it?

So what should we do if there is a banking crisis, or a food shortage, or riots in the street?

The plans of the heart belong to man,
But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

I can tell you from personal experience that no matter what happens God is in control of our lives and we need to learn to pray like we've never done before, search the Word for wisdom daily and trust, trust, trust that God will provide and see us through. The worse things get the more we will gain by giving and sharing what we have. The more crazy the world gets against the truth of scripture the more we need to proclaim it in love. Cast your cares upon the Lord and even in the midst of the storm He will give you peace.

Remember,

There are ways that seem right to man.
There are ways that are right to God.