According to a recent report, our world appears to be drowning in debt to the tune of 90 trillion(!) dollars. This amounts to 90% of the world economy. Economists are warning us that the day of reckoning is near. A global financial collapse will impact us all.
There have always been doom and gloom reports, however. The “Henny Pennys” are always raising the alarm with their bleak theories. But, this seems to be different. Actual dollars eclipse the “possibilities” and even “probabilities” of theoretical economic science. At some point soon our world will have to “pay the piper”.
If and when that day comes, I think we have something to learn from our African orphans and widows who are living every day in abject poverty. Whenever we’re with them in Zambia, Malawi, and South Africa, we find them grateful and rejoicing in their humble state. They live from day to day with gratitude to the Lord for his presence and provision. WOW, of course, is a player in that provision, but we see ourselves as small participants in the hands and feet of Jesus reaching out to “the least of these”.
We often wonder who is blessing whom. We visit them to lift their spirits but find that it is they who are lifting ours. Maybe they know something that comes only by total dependence on the Lord. It’s the blessing of thankfulness for “daily bread”, rather like a child who is cared for by its parents. Indeed it’s called “child-likeness”.
It may very well be that our world will experience economic collapse in our lifetime. If it does, we may find a silver lining in that dark cloud: the blessing of rediscovering childish dependence. And no one knows joy like a child.
