Here is a series of questions I'd love to ask pretty much the whole world (realizing the number who read this blog will fall woefully short of that aspiration):
1. Do you ever recognize God teaching you via life situations and events?
2. How do you recognize those times? Do you ever feel like God pulls you out of your own life as if you are looking in from outside?
3. How does God teach you? With humor? With melancholy? With sternness? With trials? With opportunities? With a chalkboard? What does it look like?
4. What is the most recent lesson God has taught you via life situations and events?
Here are my answers in two parts. Part 1:
1. God often teaches me through life events and situations. I read the Bible, and I try to read it a lot. God certainly teaches me through Scripture, but the Bible also talks about being hearers and doers of the Word. In a sort of parallel structure, I often find that I learn truth in the Bible but I don't fully understand what it means until I rub up against it in real life. To that end, God has always been willing to give me ample opportunity to rub up against truths; especially those to which I have some hard-headedness.
2. Some may attribute the opportunities to life lessons, or simple randomness; but God is behind them. They don't happen all the time, but when they do it is unmistakable. It's as if the normal cadence of my life is interrupted and a pattern of events tells a story; a story that has an author, a purpose, a perspective, and a particular point. For a minute, I am outside of my own life and someone else is using it to bring truth to life in a way that is specifically adapted for my own understanding.
3. Here is the thing that makes me immensely curious about other people's experiences. When God orchestrates these teachable moments in my life, He often bathes them in humor and irony. Not the "Dumb and Dumber" humor that exists for its own sake, but the "Dan in Real Life" humor that has direction and teaches. This has always taken me by surprise. I often walk away laughing and saying to myself "I got ya God." To this day though, it still surprises me that God has a sense of humor. Does God have a sense of humor in your life?
4. Will answer in part 2
Friday, May 8, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wittnessing History
"I was there when....". I sometimes wonder what I'll look back on with whimsy when I'm older. I was there when Tiger Woods won the 2000 U.S. Open. I was there when Hands across America linked up in the middle of Washington D.C. I was there when Prince, Chaka Khan, and Dougie Fresh took the stage for an electrifying performance of Loddie doddie. Who knows what stories I'll bore my grand kids with over and over again. I do know that there will be stories that I share over and over again, and some of them will definitely start with "I was there when."
Lately, I can't help but wonder if this won't be one of those stories. "I was there during the roaring 90's and early 2000s. I was also there during the great awakening of the early 2000s. I was there when the world, and the U.S. changed forever." I believe we are living at a historic inflection point in our society. Since the 1970s we have been leveraging up on every dimension. People have borrowed, businesses have borrowed, our country has borrowed, and finally we have reached a point where there is nobody to borrow from and nothing to borrow against.
There is a weird thing happening in this latest recession. If you look backward in time, generally people save during the good times and borrow during the bad times. A key metric called the net savings rate has generally demonstrated this pattern. When times are good, this metric goes up and when the economy gets bad, this metric goes down. This time is different. Heading into the latest recession, the U.S. had a zero to negative savings rate meaning people were spending more than they made...that was during the good times. Now that times are bad, the net savings rate is actually going up meaning people are holding on to more of their money and putting it aside for the future. Its a double whammy given the consumer accounts for a majority of our economy. But, I think its an important symbol of what people are realizing: house prices don't always go up, times are not always good, and living beyond your means doesn't work.
It is going to be a tough lesson with long lasting ramifications; and its just getting started. But, in the end I fully believe that we will persevere. I believe we will learn and adapt and come together to bear one anothers burdens. But, I do wonder what the story will look like once we start looking back on what I believe is a very historic time.
Lately, I can't help but wonder if this won't be one of those stories. "I was there during the roaring 90's and early 2000s. I was also there during the great awakening of the early 2000s. I was there when the world, and the U.S. changed forever." I believe we are living at a historic inflection point in our society. Since the 1970s we have been leveraging up on every dimension. People have borrowed, businesses have borrowed, our country has borrowed, and finally we have reached a point where there is nobody to borrow from and nothing to borrow against.
There is a weird thing happening in this latest recession. If you look backward in time, generally people save during the good times and borrow during the bad times. A key metric called the net savings rate has generally demonstrated this pattern. When times are good, this metric goes up and when the economy gets bad, this metric goes down. This time is different. Heading into the latest recession, the U.S. had a zero to negative savings rate meaning people were spending more than they made...that was during the good times. Now that times are bad, the net savings rate is actually going up meaning people are holding on to more of their money and putting it aside for the future. Its a double whammy given the consumer accounts for a majority of our economy. But, I think its an important symbol of what people are realizing: house prices don't always go up, times are not always good, and living beyond your means doesn't work.
It is going to be a tough lesson with long lasting ramifications; and its just getting started. But, in the end I fully believe that we will persevere. I believe we will learn and adapt and come together to bear one anothers burdens. But, I do wonder what the story will look like once we start looking back on what I believe is a very historic time.
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