Times are Tough? by Andy McDonald

I just pulled up the statistics, and as of August 2010 the United States unemployment rate was 9.60%. That translates into twenty-nine and a half million people! Times are tough, but our highest rate of unemployment was November 1982 when we peaked at 10.80%.

For those of you out of work right now, the pain you are currently facing is really tough. Whether it’s been for just a few years or a life-long career, you have been a hard and faithful worker. But now the work seems to be hiding. Times are tough.

Some of you had different plans for your retirement than the life you now face as your investments and retirement accounts plummeted in value and you’ve had to adjust to this new reality. Times are tough.

Not to in any way dismiss our economic pain, but it is terribly important to keep it in perspective. Right now, over three billion of our brothers and sisters on this globe, almost half the world’s population, live on less than $2.50 per day, and 80% live on less than $10 a day. And in that perspective times are tough, but we are blessed.

And while we have hope of at least a slow long-term recovery, their future isn’t so hopeful. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name. A total of 1.4 million children will die this year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. (That’s equal to 318 times the number of soldiers we’ve lost in Iraq, and it happens every year.)

Yes, times are tough for us compared to how they were a couple or three years ago. However, in the middle of all our economic pain, in the middle of very tough times, we have much for which to be grateful. In fact, maybe one of our strategies for moving through these tough days would be for us to stop and count our blessings.

We don’t need to thank God for tough times, but we can praise him in the middle of those tough times. We can stop and think about literally billions of our brothers and sisters on this planet and their even tougher times, and maybe we can find cause to celebrate our blessings even in the middle of tough times. Philippians 4:4-7

Andy McDonald