Something hasn’t felt right in America for a long time.
And let’s not pretend everything was sunshine and roses before COVID. We had barely crawled out of the Great Recession of 2008, when Wall Street’s financial geniuses nearly drove the entire economy into a ditch. Millions lost homes, retirement savings, and years of prosperity. Washington rescued the financial system, and ordinary Americans spent the next decade rebuilding.
By 2018, things were finally looking reasonably normal.
Then came 2020. World BioWar 1.0.
Another emergency. Another economic catastrophe. Another opportunity for Washington to borrow trillions of dollars we didn’t have to solve problems we apparently couldn’t manage without bankrupting our grandchildren.
We closed businesses, disrupted schools, shuttered churches, and isolated families. Some precautions were reasonable. Others demonstrated just how quickly frightened people will surrender freedoms when government promises to protect them.
And when the economy started collapsing, Washington discovered its favorite emergency tool.
Money.
Lots of it.
The Federal Reserve expanded the money supply at an extraordinary rate. Congress authorized trillions in spending. We effectively mortgaged America’s future to survive the present.
Then came inflation.
Suddenly, a hamburger required a small business loan, buying a house became a luxury reserved for the already wealthy, and the American dream started looking suspiciously like a timeshare nobody could afford.
Of course, the economic experts remind us that inflation has moderated.
Wonderful. Prices aren’t climbing as quickly anymore. Unfortunately, they’re still sitting on top of the mountain they climbed.
And who benefited?
People who owned substantial assets watched housing values and investment portfolios soar. Meanwhile, young families struggled with rent, groceries, insurance, and mortgage rates.
The wealthy became wealthier, while everyone else was assured that the economy was doing wonderfully.
Wonderful for whom?
And before we could recover from COVID, Russia invaded Ukraine. Then came another explosion of violence in the Middle East. More wars, more spending, more borrowing, and more promises that everything is under control.
The game never ends.
Here’s where the biblical perspective becomes particularly uncomfortable.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 reminds us, “There is no new thing under the sun.”
Empires rise. Governments borrow. Wars rage. The powerful accumulate wealth, and ordinary families inherit the consequences.
Different century. Same human nature.
Proverbs 22:7 warns that the borrower becomes servant to the lender. Yet America continues piling debt upon generations that haven’t even been born.
James 5 warns wealthy men who exploit workers while accumulating riches. First Timothy 6:10 reminds us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Notice Scripture doesn’t condemn prosperity. It condemns greed, exploitation, and the worship of wealth.
And Matthew 6:24 reminds us that we cannot serve both God and money.
Perhaps that’s America’s real problem.
We’ve confused national wealth with national prosperity. We measure success by stock market records while young couples postpone marriage, children, and homeownership because they cannot afford the future their parents once enjoyed.
Meanwhile, our political and financial elites keep rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, assuring everyone that the engines are running beautifully.
Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:6 that we would hear of wars and rumors of wars. He didn’t promise a world without crises. He warned us not to be troubled by them.
America didn’t lose its way in 2020. COVID simply exposed how far we’d already drifted.
We survived the Great Recession. We survived World BioWar 1.0. We’ll probably survive the next crisis, too. We always do…
But survival isn’t prosperity, and borrowing against tomorrow isn’t stewardship.
The ship may not be sinking yet. But perhaps we should stop celebrating the champagne sales and start checking the hull.
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