OXymoronic (Happy?) New Year

Since Monday, Chinese around the world have been bidding each other a new year of prosperity, abundance, wealth, longevity and happiness. The Ox has booted out the Rat but no one it seems is hitting the bull's eye and charging towards those things. Despite the well-wishes, this year's fancies seem to drift like cotton in the wind. Don't they know an 'economic tsunami' has hit and more wicked aftershocks threaten to cause even greater destruction?

No wonder people dread reading the newspapers, it's bad news cover to cover. Yesterday's papers reported how an African-American man took the lives of his family of seven after he and his wife lost their jobs. The pressure was just too much to handle. Seems like they'd rather be spared the shame and guilt of being unable to provide for the family. The incident may be isolated and further investigation into the killings is underway. Regardless of the motivation for the murder, 'prosperity', 'abundance', 'longevity' and 'happiness' remain deeply buried and elusive for this family and millions of others around the world.

As I read the news on air this morning, the number of workers being made redundant continues to climb steadily. The unemployment rate is rising as sharply as losses incurred by banks and businesses. Governments are making calls for their economies to make more concerted effort to pull the world economy out of the doldrums and to get the markets moving (in the right direction) again. The effects on the macro scale has finally been felt by the man in the street, whose impact will stretch for a long time to come.

Almost overnight, the things that people held on to for security and as strategic pieces to grow their money - their shares, their life savings, investments and property, took a beating. Your possession may remain intact but numbers count for nothing when they lose their value. When values are drastically slashed, the wrist for some will be next on the edge.

Happy New Year? Hardly. If money, investments, savings, property and assests have been motivations for us, the phenomenon currently gripping the world clearly proves nothing physical and tangible in this life is worth holding on to. Nothing is secure.

God's Word tells us in 1 Timothy 4:17

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant
nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain,
but to put their hope in God,
who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

Where is your hope in a world where the only thing of value is your soul and your destiny?

Organisations that rely heavily on charitable donors to help meet many social needs they're striving to provide for the beneficiaries they serve are bracing for tough times. They fear the giving will stop. What then lies ahead for the people whose basic needs have yet to be met? The verse that follows in Chapter 4 of 1 Timothy reads,

Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds,
and to be generous and willing to share.

It's the new year and it may be time again to do a stock take. Where is our hope? What matters to us? And how can we bless others with what God's blessed us with in these challenging times?

Remember the story of the wise man (who built his house on the rock) and the foolish man (who decided the sand was to be his home's foundation)?

Well the floods came and only one house stood firm.

Which house on the left is befitting of yours?