Problems are for Solving

Date-Dabitur » Amazing Changes

My friend Chad has a substantial post here about the economy and how it’s changed in the last 7 years–especially regarding inflation. Gold has increased threefold, oil almost 400%, the dollar to euro ratio has doubled and the federal reserve keeps printing money and now is considering lowering interest rates again, which will further artificially prop up the housing market and cause more and more inflation, the most evil of hidden taxes.

Gold and Oil and Housing, Oh My!

These are more pressing issues to our daily lives than lions and tigers and bears, for sure.

So am I rushing out to buy gold or other hard goods that won’t crash in value? Buying gold in the year 2000 when it was cheap would have been a great investment. If I had, though (which I didin’t because of disposable income lacking at the time) today I’d be turning it into already depressed real estate. I’d buy houses in my neighborhood where the prices are less inflated than most of the rest of the area.

What can we do? I believe that unless a major change is made the economy as it currently exists will almost certainly collapse or continue inflating beyond what you can currently believe possible.

But I’m not going to buy gold.

The most important investment you can make going into an inflationary economy or a collapsing economy is not in hard goods or even real estate. It’s in the lives of those around you, particularly those in the covenant community of the local Church. If the economy collapses people who live on the outskirts will simply be too far away from one another to help one another and those lives will be the ones most affected by a collapse. Investing in relationship and proximity to other believers is crucial to surviving anything that might come our way, and will bring you into natural surroundings for mercy ministry and evangelism like we can only imagine.

So consider where you live and where those most important to you live. How involved would you be with one another if your house was suddenly worth 1/3 of its current value and gas was $15 per gallon? But if they lived across the street or around the corner? What then?

If the economy collapses or persecution breaks out or even if we want to be a driving force in the form of salt, light, and leaven in our surroundings — having a community of close proximity is a benefit beyond measure.

And if the economy doesn’t collapse? What did you lose but all the time you’re now spending trying to drive to and fro to see people you love during the week? This is why I continue to try to get my parents and my wife’s parents to move closer to us. Because close proximity makes relationships easier to develop. And that blessing goes beyond any fears or suspicions I have about the dollar, the housing market or the price of gold. And that blessing comes from God through community, and makes life better regardless of the circumstance. I am thankful that I live near others who love me and whom I love–and I pray that others will catch this vision whether it be in my ‘hood’ or another, but to sacrifice for community somewhere.

Today I passed by the WalMart near my office. Off the lot, right near the road, there used to be a gas station. For whatever reason they closed the station down. If I hadn’t seen the gas station with my own eyes, though, I would never believe there had been one there. The part of the lot that used to contain a gas station is cleared and there is no evidence whatsoever that there used to be one.

Growing up I remember in my home town a gas station that had been closed for some time, possibly since before I was born. It was still there and vacant–and there was no doubt whatsoever that it had indeed been a gas station. While it was not a gas station anymore, it still looked like a gas station.

My heart is like that old gas station. I had an elder once explain the difference between sinners and saints. Saints are redeemed sinners–no longer slaves to sin–and so are no longer labeled “sinners.” Like old gas stations, though, saints still often bear quite a bit of resemblance to what we once were. Today, like many days, I longed for my heart to look like that pristine lot that showed no evidence of ever being a gas station–I long for a heart that shows no evidence of ever being enslaved to sin.

Our hearts, though, are more like the old gas stations. The longer they’re closed down, the less someone can see what they used to be. And the longer we have been set free from sin, the less we and others will see the evidence of that former bondage.

Until we get to heaven. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51)

That changing will be like the gas station up the road. Other than the scars on Jesus, there will be no evidence left that sin once had dominion in our bodies. We will remember it, but there will be nothing left to see. There will no longer be evidence that we were once an old gas station.

And as before, I remain homesick longing for that day.

Last week’s project is mostly done (I’ll go in early tomorrow to finish it) but I leave tomorrow for the first of three trips this month so it stays busy.

I took Friday off. Thursday night we went and picked up a refrigerator that someone was giving away. It’s old, but it works, and since the newer one we had died before our last big trip it was nice to have a spare fridge again.

Friday we looked at, bought, and brought home an oak bunk bed for the boys. Their old one had been broken for a while and we’ve been tired for some time of the “mattress on the floor” method.

Saturday I moved the old fridge to the garage (I’ll learn how to fix it later when I learn about kegging beer), which was a bigger chore than I thought. I also put together the bottom section of the bunk bed and installed some upgrades we bought for the home desktop. We had only 246Meg of RAM, and XP hogs most of that, so my wife was continually frustrated with the speed. Now we sport a new DVD drive and 1GB of RAM and now we can surf the web while the virus scan is running.

Margary is mobile now, so we’re rushing around trying to figure out how to child-proof again. My mom is still doing well, and we’re all ready for things to calm down, but they don’t seem to be.

I’ll post more later when things calm down.