Stock Market and Termite Droppings

 

 

When we rented an old house in Cali, Colombia, it gnawed on me that termites were tunneling through the beams in my office ceiling. I worried about that. Everyday the termite droppings on the floor bored into my peace. I wondered how would we ever kill the termites. Suddenly one day, the owner told us to get out because he had sold the house to build apartments. Six months later, I stood in front of the empty lot where the house was.  I looked up to where my office was and remembered how I would worry about the termites in the beams. And now the beams don't exist and the termites are gone.

We had our retirement savings in the stock market and the little dips can gnaw at me.  When I had to minister to our church plants in the mountains in Colombia, I was out oftouch with the stock markets, and I arrived home to see the big red numbers. We had lost almost 25%. It was like looking at where a house once was. It would have been agonizing to watch the market fall hour by hour, but getting the news all at once was like a splash of cold water. Shock is better than slow agony. Big changes don’t seem to worry us as much as the little ones.

In England before World War II about 15% of the population dealt with extreme depression and worry. When the war broke out, depression almost disappeared. Then at the end of the war, the depression surged back to 15%. We need to have peace to worry.

On the night of October 27, 2008, I dreamed the DOW shot up 900 points. I shared the dream with my wife, my boys and my dear friend, PastorRandy MacMillan. I didn't think too much about it the next morning, but I did notice the market was up 500 points at noon. So, during the last hour of the market, I was on the phone with Randy and rooting for the DOW to hit 900.  It did. That was October 28, 2008. I didn’t make any money on the tip but I think God gave me the tip to show me that He knows how to tip anything toward us.  Letting money problems gnaw us is not a money problem but a heart problem, a trust problem. He is the owner of the house. He lets us live here. He will take care of the beams.

On April of 1975, God poured warm oil inside me. It was liquid love. That is the best way I can tell you. I opened the last closed door in my heart to Jesus Christ and I cried like a girl for hours. It was a bright Sunday morning in a white adobe church. That was the last service in the building. That evening, the service was held in a tent on a hill next to the new building site of the church.  After the service, the pastor and about three of us climbed up on the scaffold and tried to pull and push the roof beams together. We could not make them flush. The pastor told us to come back early before work to keep working on the beams and I heard inside me a voice that said, "I will put the beams together."  The next morning, I arrived with the other men and we found the pastor already on the scaffolding and the beams perfectly flushed. We asked him how he did it and he said he didn’t. As he was standing there wondering what to do, a slight breeze shook the beams. Then below him there was a lightening like crack, almost a sonicboom. He looked up and saw the beams perfectly together. To this day, Pastor Roy says it was the most supernatural event in his life. For me, it was theOwner of the house saying, "I will build My church and the doors of hell will not prevail against it."  God is restoring His church. I need to remember that when I see betrayal, division, competition and two-faced saints in the church. It gnaws on me when I see selfishness in my own heart. Lots of things gnaw on me. Lousy stocks. Lousytermites. Lousy Christians.

There is something refreshing about looking at a leveled lot, a low account, a broken church. Look up. There are beams over us that will never fall. If we are quiet enough, we can hear Him building inside us and inside others.