“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14)
If you don’t know where you are now, directions won’t help. That’s why it’s so important to understand our times. It’s the starting point on the map. It’s the “You are here” place on the map marked with a red circle. Knowing your starting point is therefore necessary to knowing what to do about your current situation. As a nation, we have entered what some have called the fourth turning, a period marked by crisis and preceded by unraveling. I think the unraveling part is in full swing. Have you noticed the vultures circling? A nice little alliance is once again blossoming with Russian warships visiting Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela and now Cuba. No doubt, it’s just to get some sun tanning in before the long hard winter but it does remind one of the Kennedy years. Did I mention that history tends to repeat itself?
While our nation finishes out the unraveling stage there are some things you can do. You are doing the first one which is to take an honest look at what is happening. Denial can be deadly. The next thing is to purpose not to get into fear. Fear is debilitating and can also be deadly. I know of three antidotes to fear. The first is perfect love which casts out fear. For that to have effect, you need to spend some serious time in the Word and in God’s presence. Get to know His love. Go beyond knowledge of the written word into something etched on your heart. It requires knowing Him. That is not a casual, intermittent, hit or miss thing. It is a quest; a pursuit if you will that consumes you and rewards you simultaneously in immeasurable ways.
Admittedly, this is perhaps my biggest struggle… Accepting the truth and the reality and the consequences of His love for me. I know He loves you and can expound on that with great confidence, but it has always been hard for me to accept that He loves me. Anyone else like that? When I need to remind myself of His love, I sometimes watch this video… Get secure in His love and fear will dissipate. Tomorrow I will share the second way I know of to defeat fear.
“And of the children of Issachar, who were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do;” (1 Chronicles 12:32)
How does one understand the times? It seems to be a prerequisite for knowing what to do. Not that God can’t still guide the ignorant and uniformed but those who fall in that category tend to miss what God is saying or filter it out because it doesn’t fit with their expectations. The sons of Issachar believed what Genesis says that the “lights in the firmament of the heaven” were “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”. According to the Targum, they also “excelled in the words of the law, were endued with wisdom, and were obedient to their command”. They were masters of signs and of Scripture.
We begin to understand the times by understanding like the Issacharians that everything including the planets goes through cycles and seasons, times of change. In the rainforest, it is known as creative destruction. It is an expected phenomenon where the new is constantly working to replace the old. Something new is born, it grows, then matures but finally enters the phase where it unravels and falls into crisis before being replaced by the emerging generation. That last of the four seasons is the one we have entered into I believe. The unraveling always leads to a crisis, out of which a new version of the old emerges, but not without a lot of pain. Watch Fred Thompson’s take on the situation below…
We can also understand the times by understanding our history and learning that history repeats itself over and over again. Read the book of Kings. It’s like a broken record how Israel repeated the cycle of turning to God, gaining prosperity, growing complacent, falling into decadence, being severely thrashed, then turning back to God again. For America, the thrashing is only beginning. I am not prophesying here. I am a student of the Bible and of history and of nature.
It can go no other way, unless their be a wholesale repentance by those who are called by His name. Who us? Repent? It’s those heathens. It’s those sinners. It’s those bankers. It those politicians. NO! God puts it in our court. We are the ones called by His name and it is up to us to humble ourselves, seek His face and turn from OUR wicked ways. If we can’t admit OUR sins and turn from wickedness how can we expect the heathen to repent who have neither His name nor His power to do so?
If you want to know what to do, begin with understanding the times and that begins by gaining a broader perspective. Start with Scripture and look for patterns. Look at history and see the cycles. Look at nature and understand how it works. Look in the heavens and know there are signs put there by God to help us navigate through life. (I am not speaking of astrology) But most of all look to Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of your faith to give you the Holy Spirit and to lead you into all truth.
The most watched election in history is finally over, but
for believers, our hardest work is still ahead. The outcome
left nearly half of this country very disappointed while the
other half are celebrating. Regardless of which group you
are in, change has come and now we must pull together and
deal with the new reality. As Seth Adkins wisely told me,
“Even though we’ve had a leadership change, GOD’S leadership
has NOT changed.”
He is still calling us to high places of key influence in
the culture. He is still expecting us to be salt and light.
The major mind molders of our culture (many of which played
a huge role in the outcome of this election) are still
woefully lacking in righteous influence. For example, the
government we choose as a nation is affected significantly
by the information fed us by the media. The media shapes our
opinion not so much by what it says but by who and what it
excludes. Many important issues never saw the light of day
in this election because the media organs didn’t want those
issues on the table.
It is my conviction that we need more righteous men and
women succeeding in business, getting financially strong,
then leveraging that strength to assume even greater roles
of responsibility, be that in media, government, etc. and
thereby have a righteous influence on our culture. Four
years ago with this in mind, I invited 11 top Christian
business leaders to pass on their most important lessons for
succeeding in business to help us all take back the
mountains of influence in our culture.
Now, in light of yesterday’s drama and tomorrow’s challenges
I feel an urgency to get their message into as many hands as
possible. When the CD’s and DVD’s first came out, they were
sold for $166. Now while supplies last, you can save over
75% and get both sets for only $39. It’s that important! Click here for details and a short video clip.
Last week I predicted on Sunday that the coming week would make history in the markets. It did. We suffered the worst weekly loss in 112 years of the Dow Jones. No worries though. The central bankers of the world got with the political leaders of the world and hatched a plan. Then our president assured us that all would be well. I feel better now. How about you? For a brief overview of what leading political and economic figures have had to say in previous turbulent times, you really need to check out this link. Pay close attention to the last quote by FDR. It should rock your world.
To give you some context for the times, you really need to familiarize yourself with this chart from the depression era. What you will notice is that the 1929 crash was not nearly as bad as what followed in 1931 and 1932. It took three years for the markets to lose 90% of their value. We on the other hand are only down 40% in the last year. What you need to pay close attention to is the enthusiastic spikes upward every few months that led folks to believe the recovery was on the way. It was not. Not until they had reached nearly total collapse.
What’s going to happen this week? I don’t know. A precipitous drop or a spectacular gain are both probabilities in my book. The latter will only last long enough to get some more sucker bets from folks who think this is a great time to buy back in. Been there. Done that. Not true. Read the links above to understand where I am coming from.
So what does this mean to you and me? First and foremost, do not get into fear. Fear tends to lead people to make poor decisions. This is a time of crisis and the crisis will worsen before getting better. Be Issacharian in nature. Discern the times and know what to do – and how to do it! Crisis creates opportunity.
In my book Rainforest Strategy, I talk about the Fungus Factor – How to Get the Most From the Least. It’s about creating tremendous value out of what other folks see as valueless. It can make you a lot of money because the cost is very low and the upside can be very high. I call the process fungigation. One of the ways to make it through this coming tough time is to learn how to fungigate. It’s a new way of seeing old things and then helping others see what you see. It is probably the most significant wealth secret in the rainforest.
