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Has the “Great Recession” taken a toll on you?

Even if you still have your job, and your family hasn’t personally been hurt by our shaky economy, you’ve probably been affected by the financial woes of our time. The endless stream of discouraging news can extract an emotional toll from us, and leave us with a haunting fear about the future.

That fear is the opposite of how God wants us to live.

In Proverbs 31 (where the Proverbs writer describes the ultimate chick) God shows us how He wants us to face the future. In the NIV translation verse 25 reads this way, “She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.” The NASB translation adds a little twist when it says that she “smiles at the future.”

How can we smile at our future and laugh at the days to come, when the world around us is no laughing matter?

First, we must return to an unshakable belief that God is faithful, that He has written our names in the palm of His hand, and that He governs in the affairs of men.

Second, we must do our best to honor the Bible’s instructions about financial management: giving, saving, living within our means, performing our work with excellence, doing our best to provide for our loved ones, and investing based on the wisdom that’s currently available to us.

Once we’ve begun practicing these things there is nothing more to do but pray, trust, and smile as we fall in to God’s “everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27).