Greece has been loaned hundreds of billions of dollars by others in the EU because they can’t get favorable terms for the loan elsewhere. If they took the high interest loans now they would default very quickly. The low interest loans buy time for Greece to reform its economy. But will it be enough? Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender”. The bible reminds us that you loose control whenever you get into too much debt. This is true on a personal level as well as for nations. We should pay attention to Greece because the USA is the largest debtor nation in the world; at the moment our creditworthiness seems unlimited. But everything has a limit. People are rioting in the streets of Greece at the stringent measures which their government is forced into adopting. You can bet the Greek government does not like imposing strict financial reforms, but they have no choice. The borrower has to do what the lender says.

Meanwhile Iceland, which was a victim and a cause of much financial stress a couple of years ago, has suffered a major volcano eruption. We actually visited this part of Iceland last summer on our vacation. We spent 12 days touring Iceland and saw the remains of the destruction from the previous eruption. What is different this time is the constant outpouring of ash high into the atmosphere. This ash has disrupted air flights over Europe for months. Natural disasters happen, but because we are so dependent on our high tech lifestyle and the world is so densely populated, natural disasters today have a much larger impact. Proverbs 3:25 “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared.” This does not mean that Christians will be protected from famines, drought, plague or war. But the Lord will be with them in the middle of all of those problems. Think of Job who had multiple disasters come after him at once, yet the Lord was with him to the end.

We have all seen the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and know that this gigantic leak will take a herculean effort to fix. Great damage will be done to our environment and some places may never recover. I am not going to argue for or against oil exploration in this letter. I am not trying to enter the political fray but only wish to point out that we humans are not as clever and competent as we think. Complex systems will always fail at some point. I believe one of the most dangerous temptations we will face as a race in the future will be to harness the ability to change the human genome. We will reach a point soon where we are smart enough to alter our own DNA and redesign the very essence of what it means to be a human being. But we will not have the wisdom to make the right choices. Proverbs 16:3 “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. The LORD works out everything for his own ends even the wicked for a day of disaster.” A Christian should have a healthy respect for the environment and human nature as God created us to be. We must learn to function within the limits the Lord sets for us.

Problems from Greece, oil and ash may come and go but as Christians our hope is in the name of the Lord who promises to take his followers through the disaster. Meanwhile it provides wonderful opportunities for witnessing to a broken world who may be more open to listen to the voice of the Lord in the midst of a personal disaster. Ten years ago Ireland was a nation fairly closed to the gospel. They were enjoying the novel prosperity of an economic boom and turning away for the first time from Roman Catholicism. But now the economy is shattered and the intuitional Church discredited, but many of the people are hungering for a lively faith in Christ. One which makes sense of fallen human nature and the complex world in which we live. New church plants are popping up across the country and many are coming to faith.

Proverbs 16: “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue. All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD. Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”