Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everybody. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're looking at the stagnant global economy. We're asking the question, is Trump your boogeyman?

This is prompted, again, of all places by an article in The New York Times. It was titled, there's a reason the world is a mess, and it's not Trump. The the reason why this is worth saying by The New York Times and then by us here at WULU is because there is a modern pension for finding a boogeyman, someone to vilify, someone to point the finger at and say, this is your fault. And if it's not a person, then it's an institution. It's the Federal Reserve.

It's Congress. It's the White House, so on and so forth. We love to blame someone. More than that, we love to reduce complex and nuanced systems and ideas down to one person because it's tough to aim at economic theory. It's a lot easier to say, hey.

That guy or that woman is an idiot, and we tend to go for the easier thing. But as this article pointed out, there are a number of factors contributing to the stagnant global economy. I'll just give you four of them. First of all, we're in a decade long, economic stagnation. This is not new.

This has been going on for a while. It's brought on by a number of reasons. We've gone from manufacturing to a service industry. Manufacturing, you can scale up. You can tweak a system to produce more or better quality.

There are levers you can pull. It's a little harder in a service based economy where you're competing, with different companies and organizations all over the globe. Populations are shrinking. Overwhelmingly, we're having less and less children, which creates less and less consumers, less and less people to buy or to sell to. And then finally, we're redistributing wealth, but we're not really great at reinventing.

We're not building new systems or new ways of doing things. We're just trying to get a little faster than we were at doing them before. Read the article for a more nuanced discussion. The point I wanna make here on Wulu is that problems like a stagnating global economy are complex, diverse, and nuanced. And we have to realize that while that's true, the temptation to wanna find one person to blame is as old as human nature.

It is, by the way, not an economic concern, but a spiritual one. The truth is that when you go all the way back to our first parents, Adam and Eve, and the very first sin, they wanted to blame somebody too. Eve blamed the serpent. Adam blamed Eve. The only thing they agreed on is that it wasn't their fault.

We have always wanted someone to be able to point the finger at so that that finger isn't pointing back at us. And bad leaders, and by the by when I say bad, I mean leaders that aren't actually for our good, they play into that reality. Good leaders lead with righteousness. They lead with good ideas. They lead with morality and integrity.

They call us to something greater. Unfortunately, at least in American politics, whether a leader has an r or a d after their name, they have the same playbook, and that's how telling you the other side is the worst and to blame for all of our country's problems. Look. I'm 41 years old, and here's what I know about presidential politics. When your party's candidate wins and the world goes sideways, you say, hey.

The president can only do so much. When the other party's candidate wins and the world goes sideways, you say it's that idiot's fault over there. The truth is neither one of those simplistic answers are actually true. And I've said this before, but I think the Bible affirms time and time again that really influence and real things that matter start locally. The Bible never encourages us to take shots at our leaders as the mechanism for change.

The Bible tells us to start with our own lives, our own patterns, our own practices. The truth is, if you wanna change your family, it starts with you. If you wanna change your business, it starts with you. If you wanna change your community, guess what? It starts with you.

Time and time again, the Bible shows us how one person who gets serious about loving God and loving their neighbor under the leadership of Jesus really can change the world. That's why in first John one nine, we're called not to blame shifting, but to ownership. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and able to cleanse us. If we will come forward saying to God, what do I need to do? How do I need to change?

How can I participate in advancing your kingdom and in blessing my neighbors? God always responds, but that's hard because true reform comes from revival. Romans 12, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So let me ask you a pretty thoughtful question here at the end. Are you blaming someone else for your problems?

Have you created a boogeyman, who of political or familial or or professional ilk? Someone you can point the finger at and say if that person hadn't done that thing, I wouldn't be where I what where I am now. Listen. You can do that, but it will not help you. The Bible says, if you're willing, if you're vulnerable, if you're humble to point the finger at yourself, God will respond with grace.

You don't need a boogeyman and neither do I. What we need is to submit ourselves to the leadership of Jesus. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Pastor Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!