There was a time when wearing white after Labor Day was a social faux pas. One explanation is that wealthy people could afford to vacation during the hot summer months and left their “city clothes” behind in favor of lighter, whiter summer outfits. When fall arrived and the privileged upper class returned to the city, they donned darker, more formal clothing. That was then—this is now: nearly 85 percent of all Americans planned to travel this summer.

Here’s another Labor Day factoid: In the late nineteenth century, American laborers worked for twelve hours per day on average in poor conditions, leading to protests and the formation of labor unions. The Central Labor Union of New York City then staged the first Labor Day holiday on this day in 1882. Twelve years later, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September an annual federal holiday.

All that to say, Americans have made great progress in many ways across recent generations. The average size of our homes has nearly tripled since 1950, for example. Technological innovations, from air conditioning to the internet, have greatly enhanced our daily lives.

“China’s economy won’t be fixed”

By contrast, our greatest geopolitical competitor has fallen on significant hard times in recent years.

Axios notes that China’s economy following its reopening after the pandemic has been plagued by weak growth, falling prices, a popped real estate bubble, and mass unemployment among young adults. Rather than dealing with these problems, China’s government is hiding them. For example, after recent reports showed unemployment among young adults reached 21.3 percent in June, the government suspended the release of the data.

The Economist agrees that “China’s economy won’t be fixed” because “an increasingly autocratic government is making bad decisions.” The article notes that China’s living standards are less than 20 percent of America’s and adds, “Many of its challenges stem from broader failures of its economic policymaking—which are getting worse as President Xi Jinping centralizes power.”

An analysis in Foreign Affairs also reports that China’s now ten-year-long infrastructure development project (known as the Belt and Road Initiative or BRI), which has lent more than $1 trillion to more than one hundred countries, is forcing many of these nations into unmanageable debt crises. The Associated Press is reporting this morning that Italy is not expected to extend its commitment to BRI when it comes up for renewal at the end of the year.

“The one thing Americans can agree on”

Not only does China face grave uncertainty, the United States can point to significant advantages in this geopolitical competition. Cambridge University political economist John Rapley notes that the US “still has sources of power that nobody can seriously rival: a currency that faces no serious threat as the world’s medium of exchange, the deep pools of capital managed on Wall Street, the world’s most powerful military, the soft power wielded by its universities, and the vast appeal of its culture.”

And so, we should feel confident about our nation’s present and future. And yet, we don’t.

A recent Pew Research Forum study reported that “Americans are in a negative mood about the current state of the country, with large majorities expressing dissatisfaction with the economy and overall national conditions.” When they look to the future, “they see a country that in many respects will be worse than it is today.”

Only one in ten give high ratings to the way democracy is working in our nation or how well it represents the interests of most Americans. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Pessimism is the one thing Americans can agree on.”

Why is this?

The Lord testified: “When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars” (Psalm 75:3). If a house loses its foundation, will those inside not see the cracks in the walls and feel the tremors? Scripture says of Jesus: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). When we forsake the “hub” into which the spokes of our souls fit, should we be surprised when the wheel disintegrates?

No nation’s future is guaranteed, including ours. Babylon was the Washington, DC, of her day, but God predicted: “She shall never again have people, nor be inhabited for all generations” (Jeremiah 50:39). Accordingly, ancient Babylon is an uninhabited ruin to this day.

Our secularized, post-Christian nation should take heed.

“Return to me, and I will return to you”

The good news is that it is always too soon to give up on God. He promises, “Return to me, and I will return to you” (Malachi 3:7). So, let’s close with an invitation from Max Lucado to make Christ our Shepherd before it’s too late:

God, our Shepherd, doesn’t check the weather; he makes it. He doesn’t defy gravity; he created it. Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” He has no limitations. Unchanging. Uncaused. Ungoverned. Don’t we need this kind of shepherd?

You don’t need to carry the burden of a lesser god—a god on a shelf, a god in a box, or a god in a bottle. No, you need a God who can place one hundred billion stars in our galaxy and one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. A God who can shape two fists of flesh into seventy-five to one hundred billion nerve cells, each with as many as ten thousand connections to other nerve cells, place it in a skull, and call it a brain. And you have one. He is your Shepherd.

Is he your Shepherd today?

Denison Forum

Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area yesterday morning. Some residents who chose to ride out the storm at home had to “swim out of their windows” to escape waves of water crashing through their front doors. It then flooded parts of Georgia and the Carolinas before moving offshore this morning.

In other news, a fire ripped through a rundown five-story building in Johannesburg, South Africa, killing at least seventy-three people as of this morning. Several of the victims were children. And today is the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death in 1997 at the age of thirty-six.

I’ve written often over the years on the subject of innocent suffering and truly believe that God redeems all he allows, even disasters like those in today’s news. At the same time, I don’t want to sound a positive note that would be tone-deaf to those who are grieving. So instead, I’ll offer some very personal reflections that are different from any I’ve shared in the past.

My two great crises

My father died of a heart attack in 1979 at the age of fifty-five. The shock was nearly overwhelming for me and my family. He had been in poor health since his first heart attack nineteen years earlier, but we did not expect his death to come so soon or abruptly. And I had no idea why God would allow such a tragedy.

The other great crisis of my life came ten years ago when our older son was diagnosed with cancer. He underwent surgery and six weeks of radiation treatments. The thought that he could die from this was more than I could contemplate. Watching our son go through surgery and radiation was more grievous for me than I can express in words. To this day, I try not to think about the pain of those months.

Here’s my point: In both cases, I learned the truth of Robert Frost’s observation that there is “no way out but through.” Avoiding the realities we were facing did not make them any less real. Pretending that our pain was less painful did not make it so. Keeping up appearances with others did not change the condition of my heart.

And being anything less than honest and transparent with God only made things worse for my soul.

“O Lᴏʀᴅ, how many are my foes!”

Over these years as a “fellow struggler” (to use John Claypool’s poignant metaphor), both as a pastor and as a human, I have come to appreciate the honesty of God’s word. The so-called “psalms of lament” (nearly half of the Psalms) have become especially important for me.

The first is perhaps the most deeply personal for David. Psalm 3 was composed while he was fleeing for his life from his son Absalom (2 Samuel 15–18). Imagine what this aged king must have felt as his son usurped his throne, staged a national rebellion, and sought to kill him.

In response, David begins: O Lᴏʀᴅ, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, ‘There is no salvation for him in God’” (Psalm 3:1–2). I would have followed this very honest statement with a litany of complaints against the Lord, asking him to explain why he allowed this crisis in my life and nation.

David does not: “But you, O Lᴏʀᴅ, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he answered me from his holy hill” (vv. 3–4). He chooses to see God’s unseen presence and providential protection and to cry to him in faith.

Consequently, he can make a statement I find absolutely astounding: “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lᴏʀᴅ sustained me” (v. 5). Even while fleeing from his son’s armies, David can sleep while trusting that God will protect him. As a result, he testifies, “I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around” (v 6).

And he prays, “Arise, O Lᴏʀᴅ! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked” (v. 7). Then he extends his intercession to his divided nation: “Salvation belongs to the Lᴏʀᴅ; your blessing be on your people!” (v. 8).

Reflections for all who suffer

I take from our psalm two life principles that are relevant for anyone facing life’s tragedies today.

One: David’s prayer invites us to be honest with God.

Psalm 3 and others like it are preserved in Holy Scripture as models of true transparency. They remind us of our Lord’s call to “reason together” (Isaiah 1:18); the Hebrew is literally translated as “argue it out.”

Do you need to argue with God today?

Two: David’s example invites us to be honest with ourselves.

My favorite part of Psalm 3 is verse 7, where David prays, “You strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.” This is not pious religiosity but personal transparency. David is honest with his emotions in the moment, secure in the knowledge that he can admit how he truly feels to himself and then to God.

After my father died, I began praying the words I felt I should say, telling God that I was grateful for my father’s life and that I trusted him with our family’s needs. But then, the Spirit somehow opened a door in my spirit to how I genuinely felt at that moment—angry, hurt, and frightened. I was mad at my father for dying and mad at my Father for allowing my father to die.

That evening, I went into our backyard, looked up into the night sky, and shook my fist at God. But he did not shake his fist at me.

He never does.

Denison Forum