With real hardship looming on the horizon, there may be cause for optimism on the spiritual front. Consider: in a climate wherein the very real possibility of economic disaster comes to dominate a people's thought, the light and fluffy amusement motif of Willow Creek and others will be pushed aside by real believers who will instead turn inward and do some real honest-to-goodness soul searching, as the dependence -- not on man, his ingenuity, or his "buying and selling" in the stock market -- on God for our daily bread becomes more and more "real" to us.
Let us pray that the Santa Claus-like Baal will be overthrown and replaced by the great and terrible God Who worked wonders before Pharaoh, Who traveled in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, whose precepts through Moses told us of Himself and His attributes, and whose unspeakable mercy is penned by real men in simple words on ink and paper - in short, the God who can save. This is the God we know and the God I want others to know, the God who loves and saves us from our own wretchedness.
Amen
Those words belong in a book. Powerful.
A second AMEN!