Bali, Indonesia, 2008: Trent Ling, catching restful times on the beaches of the Indian Ocean, still pays attention to the happenings on the rest of the Earth. He’s not upset at all. He’s just being honest.
From Trent Ling:
In Jeremiah 17:5 God straightforwardly declares: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.”
No doubt, as a nation of people largely looks to the U.S. Congress and/or President Obama’s point man, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to remedy a long-spiraling economy, there are curses to be endured for such ill-placed longings and yearnings.
Geithner was interviewed nearly immediately following his long-anticipated, but poorly received, speech last Tuesday on Treasury’s plan to help ailing and/or failing financial companies. He made it clear that despite what will be over $3 Trillion in additional government borrowing and spending, the toxic assets on financial companies’ balance sheets will not be purchased by the government. Such purchase by the government would likely make those companies viable and worthy investments by private investors. It is generally agreed among those who know, that those toxic assets are what have been choking the economy all along. And, as many await daily with bated breath, those assets are really going nowhere, which tragically brings former defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s war moniker “long hard slog” back into mind.
In fact, Geithner was asked by NBC’s Brian Williams whether he was going to create a resolution bank for those toxic assets. Geithner plainly said, “That’s something that I am not prepared to do.” Geithner explained that he was not willing to be “vulnerable to the charge that we’re going to overpay for a bunch of these bad assets and provide a disguise subsidy to the financial system.” Of course, the real answer is that the Obama administration is not willing to spend its political popularity on fixing the problem.
Consider this well-educated and well-heeled circus a curse from heaven for those looking to men to fix their ills.
In Jeremiah 8:11-12, God declares of leaders: “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.”
The day after the Geithner speech last week, Congress wheeled in 8 embattled CEO’s from some of the world’s largest financial institutions based in the U.S. Congress, renowned for insisting on making sausage on national television, could not stop its usual blustering. If only it could blush!
One of many emblematic exchanges at these CEO hearings was between Representative Walter Jones (R-NC) and crestfallen Citibank CEO, Vikram Pandit. Jones wanted Pandit to reduce interest rates that Citi charges credit card holders “for a year or two.” Pandit responded with a Piranha’s answer to a Piranha’s question. Politics for politics.
Even on-the-hot-seat Bank of America CEO, Ken Lewis, was asked to do whatever he could to extend credit to his people across this nation because people were suffering and hurting.
And then, it was the next U.S. Representative’s turn to ask something. Or, more accurately, to say something. So were the ad nauseam hearings.
The multitude of problems goes unconfessed. Without government intervention already, Citibank and Bank of America would likely be dissolving in bankruptcy. How is Citibank going to cede interest rates to cardholders? By getting it from the government! How is Bank of America going to extend credit? By getting it from the government! What these financial institutions really need is not forthcoming, given Geithner’s meager plan. So, they are sentenced to languish tethered to the government indefinitely like gasping fish—a truly torturous existence. So what was the point? The point was for Congress to maintain its political machine modeled after the hydrogen car. The hydrogen car emits only water, making it a popular alternative vehicle. Similarly, these Congressional hearings emit only political capital to the politicians whose mistreatment of the economy is too complicated for the electorate, and whose hypocritical maltreatment of the CEO’s is popular with enough of the electorate.
Ironically, in all of this, Congress has not really failed the people. The people have abandoned God and the truth of the Bible. God has made this known by cursing almost every aspect of the people’s turn toward Congress for “help.”
Congress is not immune from God. Its inability to blush proves it to be in God’s crosshairs. For those who can hear what is being said on the rooftops (Luke 12:3) it is clear that God is alive and letting it really be known despite men’s efforts to suffocate the truth.
Spiritual victory might look like this: 1) A people who seek God and stop trusting in man and depending upon flesh for their strength; and 2) A Congress that could blush over its loathsome conduct. God has been around a long time desiring both, and largely getting neither. Perhaps the “few” Jesus spoke of (Matthew 7:14) will emerge from these ever-smoldering ashes. Perhaps the “few” might include you. Perhaps not. Perhaps.
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