The ongoing US government shutdown is the longest full shutdown in US history and the second-longest of any kind. Among its consequences:

• At Hollywood Burbank Airport in California, the air traffic control tower was recently left unstaffed for six hours, forcing pilots to communicate among themselves to avoid incidents when taxiing to and from the runway.
• More than eight thousand US flights have been delayed as shutdown-related air traffic control absences persist.
• Forty-two million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) will go without their SNAP benefits beginning this Saturday.
• Federal funding will also stop flowing to programs that fund education, health, and nutrition services for more than eight hundred thousand children under the age of six.

In other financial news, Amazon is preparing to lay off up to thirty thousand corporate workers as the company plans mass automation. UPS disclosed yesterday that it has cut forty-eight thousand management and operations positions. And Axios reports that employers are already scaling back hiring because of AI.

October 29 is an annual reminder that financial prosperity is promised to no one. This day in 1929 will forever be known as Black Tuesday, the collapse of the stock market that helped produce the Great Depression.

However, financial uncertainty need not steal our joy. Happiness is based on happenings; joy is a “fruit” of the Spirit regardless of conditions (Galatians 5:22). And the harsher the conditions, the greater our joy can be.

Here’s how.

How money can make you happier

In And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, historian Jon Meacham describes in detail the poverty in which our nation’s greatest president grew up. Lincoln’s father struggled to provide for their family; his mother died when he was nine years old. He worked as a farmer, a ferryman, and a store clerk. His time in a school classroom was limited to less than a year.

Lincoln said of himself, “I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.”

His background helps explain his passionate commitment to Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal.” A year after Lincoln was elected president, he praised this assertion as “giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time.” He knew that, with his humble origins, in no country but America could he have become the leader of that country.

But while the Founders declared and defended our equal and “inalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” they couched them in secular terms in a secular Constitution. The word “God” nowhere appears in the document; it mentions “religion” only to prohibit religious tests for office, prevent the establishment of a national religion, and defend religious liberty.

Here’s the problem: the “pursuit of happiness” as an end rather than a means turns out to be a self-defeating exercise.

Social scientist Arthur C. Brooks cites research in his latest Atlantic article that shows how materialistic values are negatively correlated with overall life satisfaction, mood, self-appraisal, and physical health. However, they are positively associated with depression, anxiety, compulsive buying, and risky behaviors. He summarizes: “Money can make you happier, but only if you don’t care about it.”

Pursuing happiness makes us unhappy; pursuing service makes us significant.

Four practical responses

This Halloween week, we’re considering Satan and his strategies. In response to financial need, the devil wants us to doubt God, prioritize the temporal, choose greed over character, and thus damage our witness to the world (cf. Acts 5:1–11).

Our Father wants us to do just the opposite:

Trust God. One way the Lord redeems our needs is by using them to show us the depth of our need for his provision. Only when I admit that “I am weak” can I say “I am strong” in Christ (2 Corinthians 12:10). When we seek and follow his lead, then work as he works, he is “able to make all grace abound to you” (2 Corinthians 9:8; cf. Philippians 4:19).

Prioritize the eternal. I once heard a pastor say he had never seen a U-Haul attached to a hearse. Life is like the game of Monopoly: when it is over, the pieces go back into the box. As C. T. Studd noted, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Randy Alcorn would agree: “What you do with your resources in this life is your autobiography.”

Choose character over greed. We don’t know the strength of our faith until it is tested. We can say we would never cheat on our taxes or steal from our employer, but if we truly need the money that such sins would produce, we discover the depth of our commitment. When temptation comes, turn it immediately to your Lord and claim his victorious grace (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Elevate your witness. The prophet Habakkuk authored one of my favorite declarations in Scripture:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lᴏʀᴅ; I will take joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3:17–18).

He could therefore testify: “Gᴏᴅ, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (v. 19). Such a testimony in times of plenty is unremarkable; in times of need, it is transformative.

My grocery store friend

I have become friends with a man who works at our local grocery store. When I first met him, I could sense the joy of the Lord in his countenance and the peace of God in his heart. When we see each other, we bump fists (he has to keep his hands sanitary to do his work) and tell each other we’re praying for each other.

Not long ago, he shared with me that he and his wife were going through a time of great financial struggle and asked me to pray for him. I did and I have. I saw him again this week, and his smiling spirit spoke again to my spirit. I asked how things were going. Not better, he confided. But then he grinned and quoted Job:

“Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15).

In whom will you “hope” today?

Quote for the day:

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” —Martin Luther

Our latest website resources:

• When I’m attacked for being a Christian, how should I respond?
• In “Nobody’s Mother,” Sandra L. Glahn seeks God’s truth on women’s giftings
• Rare earth minerals, Louvre jewelry heist, “No Kings” protests & a World Series preview!
• What is cultural apologetics and why is it critical for today’s culture?
• Ask Jim: Should Christians celebrate Halloween? What happens when we die? Does demon possession still happen today?

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Some records are fun to watch, such as the Dodgers’ eighteen-inning win last night (actually early this morning) that tied for the longest game in World Series history. Others are horrific, such as the hurricane striking Jamaica today that could be the most powerful storm ever to make landfall anywhere.

Hurricane Melissa is now the strongest storm on the planet this year. The Category 5 storm is expected to devastate Jamaica, an island of more than 2.7 million people, before continuing across eastern Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas. However, a strong cold front tracking into the eastern part of the US will act as an atmospheric brick wall along our coastline, forcing the hurricane out into the Atlantic and away from us.

The fact that America will be spared the wrath of the storm may cause you to be less concerned about it. That would only make you human—our fight-or-flight instinct innately prioritizes direct threats over those more incidental to us.

However, if you had been with me on my ten trips to Cuba and met the incredible Christians I know there, you would feel differently about this story. One of their pastors is one of my dearest friends. I pray for him by name every day; he does the same for me. I love him as my brother because he truly is. I am already grieving what he and his people are facing and urge you to join me in intercession for all those being devastated by this unfolding tragedy.

Why 380 million Christians are being persecuted

Whenever stories of innocent suffering make headlines, I wonder if I should once again write on the perennial issue they raise: How can an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God allow such evil to exist? Even though I have done so often in books and articles, the question persists because the issue persists.

And the closer to home it strikes, the deeper the doubts it raises.

Today, let’s take a different tack. As I noted yesterday, Halloween week seems an appropriate time to discuss Satan and his strategies. And causing innocent suffering is one of his most nefarious activities.

Jesus called him “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), one who comes “only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Note the word “only”—everything the devil does expresses one or more of these three actions.

He can cause natural disasters (cf. Job 1:12–19) and disease (Job 2:7) and inspire sinful acts against God’s people (cf. Luke 22:3–6). Because he cannot attack our Father, he attacks his children (1 Peter 5:8–9). Consequently, according to Open Doors, more than 380 million Christians are suffering persecution and discrimination around the world today. As my friend John Stonestreet notes, such persecution affects one in five Christians in Africa and two in five in Asia.

As you can see, much innocent suffering in the world is caused by Satan. But you may be asking: Why, then, does an omnipotent God allow the devil to act in such horrific ways?

Here’s one factor: the deeper our suffering, the greater our transformation when we trust it to our Lord.

Surviving the Bataan Death March

Our Bible study teacher last Sunday recommended Bill Keith’s Days of Anguish, Days of Hope, which tells the incredible story of Chaplain Robert Preston Taylor’s experience as a POW in World War II. Reading it was a deeply moving experience, especially since my father experienced the horrors of war in the South Pacific as well.

Rev. Taylor, with an earned doctorate from Southwestern Seminary, was an established pastor in Fort Worth, Texas, when he sensed God’s call to devote a year to military chaplaincy on behalf of American soldiers in the South Pacific.

He was serving in Manila when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They soon assaulted the Philippines as well, taking Taylor and more than twenty thousand other Americans captive. He was subjected to the Bataan Death March, three and a half years of horrific imprisonment, and unspeakable torture and deprivation. When he was finally liberated at the end of the war, he learned that his wife had thought he was dead and remarried.

Early in his captivity, Colonel Alfred Oliver, chief of the Philippine chaplains, said to Dr. Taylor and the other chaplains imprisoned with him, “Men, I want us to pray and thank God for the confidence he has placed in us by letting us be in this place at this time.” The wisdom of such confidence was soon revealed: God used them to spark a spiritual revival in their prison camp that touched thousands of lives and became known across the region. Soldiers who began the war with no spiritual interest became deeply devoted believers in the midst of their suffering.

Colonel Oliver said to his fellow prisoners,

“Men, I’ve learned never to doubt in the darkness what I believed in the light.”

Because he and his fellow chaplains experienced such deep darkness, the light of their faith was transforming for thousands. And God continued to use Dr. Taylor: he was ultimately promoted to Air Force Chief of Chaplains with the rank of Major General.

“Thank God I’m not the one in charge”

What Joseph said to his brothers, every Christian can say to Satan when he does his worst: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). The greater our suffering, the greater our impact when we trust our pain to our redeeming Lord.

The old hymn therefore rightly declares:

The powers of darkness fear,
When this sweet chant they hear,
May Jesus Christ be praised! . . .
The night becomes as day,
When from the heart we say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

I heard a song on the radio recently that makes my point in more contemporary terms. Ben Fuller and Carrie Underwood sang:

If it was up to me, there’d be no gravel roads
No wounds, no blisters on my soul
Pain might come, but it wouldn’t come for me
If it was up to me, I’d take the easy ride
But I’d miss the grace that changed my life
Thank God I’m not the one in charge of things
I’d never know how good your plans could be
If it was up to me.

What “blisters” on your “soul” will you trust to your Father’s grace today?

Quote for the day:

“Because of Christ, our suffering is not useless. It is part of the total plan of God, who has chosen to redeem the world through the pathway of suffering.” —R. C. Sproul

Our latest website resources:

• When I’m attacked for being a Christian, how should I respond?
• In “Nobody’s Mother,” Sandra L. Glahn seeks God’s truth on women’s giftings
• Rare earth minerals, Louvre jewelry heist, “No Kings” protests & a World Series preview!
• What is cultural apologetics and why is it critical for today’s culture?
• Ask Jim: Should Christians celebrate Halloween? What happens when we die? Does demon possession still happen today?

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Do Christians still suffer persecution today? When last were you attacked for being a Christian? And I’m not just talking about being “attacked” online for holding to your beliefs. Rather, I’m asking whether you’ve experienced face-to-face attacks on your Christian beliefs or character.

If you have, remember what Jesus told his disciples: “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Matthew 10:22). In other words, if you are clinging fast to Jesus and his teachings, you will inevitably experience an attack.

Such attacks can vary in severity, from verbal arguments that seem to cut to the core of your identity to actual physical attacks that harm your body.

This is persecution, and it has been going on since the dawn of Christianity.

In The Global War on Christians, John Allen calls the worldwide persecution of Christians “the most dramatic religion story of the early twenty-first century, yet one that most people in the West have little idea is even happening.” The respected journalist describes this persecution as “the most compelling Christian narrative of the early twenty-first century.” According to him, “Christians today indisputably are the most persecuted religious body on the planet.”

While 30 percent of the world’s population identifies as Christian, 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination around the world are directed at Christians. One scholar estimates that 90 percent of all people killed based on their religious beliefs are Christians.

Now, a majority of Christians in the US do not face such devastating persecution. Few of us are interrogated, arrested, tortured, or killed for our faith. And for the millions of believers in America who know nothing about such persecution, we ought to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ across the globe who must endure these horrific acts against our faith.

However, as Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines persecute, we may be harassed or punished “in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict specifically . . . because of belief.”

When you were attacked for being a Christian, did you acquiesce to cultural pressure?

Or did you stand on the promises of God?

If the former, know that you are forgiven, and know that the biblical story I’m about to relate will encourage your faith.

If the latter, I applaud your efforts to be a culture-changing Christian in your sphere of influence.

But I also know—from personal experience—that none of us always makes the right choice when it comes to following God.

And when someone attacks your beliefs, it can be very challenging indeed to respond well and respond biblically.

An epic battleground

Mount Carmel is a mountain range in northern Israel. Today, Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, is located on its northern slope. To the range’s east and southeast sits the Valley of Megiddo, which you may know as the place called Armageddon in the book of Revelation. Between the range and the valley sits a spring of water that was the likely setting for one of the most impressive displays of God’s work and one lone prophet’s immense faith.

By the time of this epic battle, the pagan religion of Baal worship had swept the nation of Israel. “Baal” was the Canaanite word for “master” or “lord.” The name described one of the chief male deities of Canaanite religion. He was seen as lord of the weather and storms, so that his voice was heard in the thunder, his spear was the lightning bolt, and his steed the storms.

The Canaanites worshiped Baal in a variety of ways, usually on hilltops called “high places” (so they could be as close to him as possible). They sacrificed animals (and sometimes children) and performed sexual dances on his behalf.

The wife of Baal was Ashtoreth. She was seen as the evening star and the goddess of war and fertility. She was worshiped through temple prostitution (involving both men and women). Sacred pillars (perhaps phallic symbols) were placed near the temples of Baal as altars to her. The Greeks worshiped her as Aphrodite, the Romans as Venus.

These deities were enticing to the Israelites as they entered the land of Canaan, and they remained enticing to them for centuries.

But one would have to imagine that, had the ancient Israelites had access to the kind of immediate news we do today, they would have turned to God after having witnessed what he did for the prophet Elijah in 853 BC at Mount Carmel.

“Lord, answer me”

The full story of Elijah versus the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth is told in 1 Kings 18:20–40. I recommend reading it, but the condensed version is that Elijah requests 450 of Baal’s prophets and 400 of Ashtoreth’s prophets to meet him at Mount Carmel. Once there, he challenges the prophets to have their god set fire to a sacrificed bull on an altar.

From morning until noon, the prophets cry, limp, and even cut themselves so that their god will hear them. Nothing happens—aside from Elijah mocking their “sleeping” god in verse 27. Then Elijah, full of confidence that God will show his power, douses the bull with water—three times! Realize that, if God doesn’t come through, Elijah’s career as a prophet is over, and his life might be too. In fact, the future of the nation of Israel may have even been in jeopardy at this moment.

Yet Elijah chooses to believe God against 850 other religious zealots.

The conclusion of the story is worth reading in full:

And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.” (1 Kings 18:36–39).

Is God truly your king?

So, what does Elijah’s inspiring story tell us about living for Christ today?

If you say and believe that God is your king, then you must trust him whether you want to or not, whether it’s popular or not, whether it’s easy or not, whether you’re persecuted or not. The next time you face persecution for being a Christian, ask yourself these simple questions:

• Who comes first: Jesus or me?
• Do my actions truly reveal what I say I believe?
• Remembering the price he paid for me, do I love Jesus enough to pay this price for him?

You will know if God is actually the king of your life by the degree to which you obey him even when—and maybe especially when—you must make a sacrifice to follow his leading.

The millionaire’s sacrifice

When I consider the word sacrifice, I recall the inspiring story of William Borden.

In late nineteenth-century Chicago, Borden was heir to an immense family fortune his father had accrued from mining silver. Upon William’s graduation from boarding school at age sixteen, his parents gifted him a chaperoned trip around the globe. While in London, Borden surrendered his life to Christian service as a missionary.

After graduating from Yale and Princeton Theological Seminary, Borden planned to become a missionary in China so as to reach the Muslims there. However, he contracted meningitis while studying in Egypt and never recovered. Borden died at the age of twenty-five.

According to an Our Daily Bread devotional from 1988, Borden wrote two words in the back of his Bible after having accepted his call to be a missionary: “No Reserves.”

After turning down lucrative job offers after graduating from Yale, he wrote two more words: “No Retreats.”

Prior to his impending death, he added two final words: “No Regrets.”

When that story was made public, thousands of people reportedly gave themselves to foreign mission work. The end of Borden’s earthly story became the beginning for thousands of spiritual stories—maybe even millions.

Out of gratitude for the grace of God, your opportunity today, in the face of any and all attacks, is to say the same as Borden did: No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.

This article originally appeared in Biblical Insight to Tough Questions Vol. 4, currently available in the Denison Forum store.

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