Confidence in What?

It seems to be the catch-phrase of the moment - "consumer confidence". I hardly hear a news report without some mention of consumer confidence thrown in. According to the experts, it seems that consumer confidence is the glue that holds our world together. A fall in consumer confidence is apparently a dire emergency worthy of all our attention.

But confidence in what? What is it so desperately important that we have confidence in? The value of our dollar? The stuff we buy with our dollars? Our ability to earn lots of dollars?

Has our world truly become so extraordinarily narrow that the value of our lives and our selves is measured purely in dollars? If the nightly news is anything to go by, it seems that it has.

Confidence in money and stuff is sure to lead to disaster and disappointment in the end. As the Bible reminds us: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal." (Matthew 6:19) No currency or thing has any truly lasting value.

We can have confidence in God alone. That's it. Nothing else is worthy of our confidence, because nothing else is solid, sure and Eternal.

Breaking Wind

Have you ever put your heart and soul into working at something... only to have it come to nothing? Maybe a gourmet meal where you added too much salt right at the end? Perhaps you repainted a room, only to have the paint peel, or to decide that you hated the new colour? Or perhaps you scorched a hole in a treasured craft with an iron?

Most of us have experienced it sometime - a totally wasted effort. Discouraging, isn't it? In reality, all our physical efforts will eventually come to nothing. One day, we'll die and then rot in the ground and all our physical accomplishments will rot or collapse or fade with us. Perhaps not right away, but eventually. So what is it all for?

In Isaiah 26 in the Bible, God compares all our efforts to better the world to a woman having "birth pangs" and then, instead of giving birth to a baby... breaking wind. Just imagine thinking you're pregnant for nine months, and then, after a long and difficult labour, letting forth nothing but a massive fart. What a horrible disappointment!

Even the Vatican has suggested a solution to the world's financial woes. Governments, charity organizations, social reformers - you name it - are scrambling to fix everything from wage disputes to climate change. Their efforts are huge, but the end result will be no more than a really bad smell.

There is a simple (but very unpopular) cure to this kind of flatulence. It's doing things God's way. But, as the Bible predicts, it's going to take the total collapse of all that we hold dear before humanity will accept God's way of doing things.

We have the chance to do something that will have a lasting effect - if we invest in something beyond the physical. Will we choose to leave behind something more than a bad smell?

To hear more about how current events relate to prophecy and how we should be living, check out the new Beyond Today Daily.

The World Is Falling Apart...

Have you read in the news that Italy is now being governed by technocrats? That means people who were not elected. Europe is changing rapidly. The governments of Greece and Italy have already collapsed. More big changes are in the wind with France and Spain in financial trouble.

Europe is falling apart. At some point it will be put back together, but it will look very different to the Europe my generation have grown up with. I know this because the Bible says so. Don't believe it? Try reading the books of Daniel and Revelation.