From Guest Blogger Donny Barnes

I need to stop reading the news. It’s making me depressed.

Every day seems to bring new headlines of economic problems, company closures, increasing unemployment, and an uncertain (but pretty pessimistic) future. By now, most of us know someone who has lost a job or has been affected by this economy. Maybe some of us are already in that boat ourselves.

I don’t know if things will get better immediately in 2009. In fact, many analysts are predicting that they won’t. So as followers of Jesus, we have two basic options:
1. We can be paralyzed by fear and self-pity like everyone else, or
2. We can look for opportunities to help and serve others, because there will be plenty of them.

Times like these aren’t fun, but they’re usually better for our spiritual health, and for the Jesus-movement in general. Throughout history, the Church has never done well with prosperity, either on an individual or collective level. And that’s not surprising. It’s always easy to forget God when we’re doing well and everything is going right. But when times get tough, and the material things that we’ve subtly started to worship disappear, we remember that there’s only one true source of life. As we re-learn to rely on God, and as the rest of the world becomes more needy, the Church shines.

I predict that 2009 will give us huge opportunities to tangibly show people what Jesus is all about by helping people in need. I love Philippians 2:3-4, which says to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” I also love II Corinthians 5:20: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us.”

I like pairing these verses because it reminds me that there’s a specific reason why we’re supposed to be unselfish, and it’s not because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy. God has given us the privilege and responsibility to be His ambassadors, His witnesses, to a broken world. Despite how broken I am myself, I am tasked with showing Christ’s love to people who might not encounter it otherwise, and that usually requires me to step outside my own circle of convenience.

We only get so many chances to sacrifice for other people. And we should see more than usual over the coming months. Let’s not waste them.