Your “prison” might be God’s “safe house”

A few weeks ago at Fellowship Friday, Mark Goldstein shared an observation that really helped me reconcile myself to my past.

Mark told us he found a spider in his shower, and rather than let the spider get drowned when the shower was turned on, he captured it in a box to release it outside. But the spider, not knowing about the imminent deluge, ran from the box, resisting confinement.

Photo by Victor Iglesias

How often do we resist being put in a box? Mark’s point is that while the spider saw a danger, it actually got protection from a greater threat it had no way of perceiving. In the same way, God may put us in circumstances we resist or rebel against, but in fact he’s trying to preserve us from some greater difficulty beyond our understanding.

The last few years of my journalism career were like that. I felt stifled. My best skills were not being used every day. I felt, as I said to some prayer partners at the time, imprisoned.

God had me in a box. As I look back now, I realize that had I gone through the depth of the recession as a freelancer, I might not have made it. Instead of a prison, the newsroom was a safe house where I was able to earn a living, build relationships, and hone my editing skills.

Consider whether times you felt imprisoned were really times that God was protecting you from some greater disaster. The apostle Paul tells us that in all things God works for good together with those who love him. But God’s idea of what’s good and ours don’t always match. He’s not working to please us. He’s working to save us.

Hiking up recovery mountain

If your business, like so many others, is still hurting, you may wonder what the economists are thinking when they talk about our economy being in recovery.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession ran from December 2007 to June 2009. If we've been in recovery for a year and a half, why does it still feel like a "recession" to so many?

It's important to understand what economists mean when they speak of "recession." If you graph them, periods of growth, or expansion, are rising lines leading to peaks. Periods of contraction, or recession, are descending lines that lead to troughs.

The GDP, one of the main factors in measuring economic growth, has been rising since June 2009. Though that growth was sometimes small, the numbers were positive, as opposed to the negative numbers seen during the recession.

So why does recovery seem so crummy?

Photo by Christophe Libert
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Imagine you're climbing a mountain. When you reach the peak, you stand in the bright sunshine and can  see for miles.

Then you fall. You roll down that steep slope for a year and a half. You land in a valley. Bruised, but not broken, you stand up. That mountain behind you now blocks the sun. You're in shadow.

You can't go back the way you came. Ahead of you is another mountain -- maybe not as tall as the one you fell from. It has a shallower slope. You begin climbing. Slowly, surely, you ascend. You leave the valley floor behind. But the next peak is still far away, and you are still in shadow.

In The Great Reset, Richard Florida compares the 2007-2009 recession to earlier ones. "Recovery from both the Long Depression of the 1870s and the Great Depression of the 1930s -- the First and Second Resets -- took the better part of two or three decades."

He says forecasting where we'll be once the present crisis is history would be like predicting "the full flower of postwar suburbanization from the vantage point of Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration day in 1932."

Florida goes on to identify the forces "that will almost certainly power a real Great Reset and a more sustainable new way of life." I have yet to finish this book, but I suspect Florida's observations will be instructive for all of us as we climb through this long recovery.

And as we go, let's remember that we have a mighty counselor who climbs with us out of the valley. "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." — Isaiah 9:2

Pulling through

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke added his voice to those who say we are not facing a “double-dip” recession. Gross Domestic Product is increasing, albeit slowly. Bernanke said, though, that the recovery “won't feel terrific."

Among those in agreement is investment advisor Barry Ritzholz, who said on his blog Monday wrote, “Following the initial surge in data off of the lows, we have entered a slowing phase of the recovery.”

Ritzholz discredits those who forecast a “double-dip” recession by pointing out that although some economic indicators are slowing, “none of it is consistent with past double dip recessions.”

But we are in, as he puts it, “a soft patch.” And Bernanke warns us that the recovery is not “going to be fast enough to put back eight million people who lost their jobs within a few years.”

Of course, we know that small business is a great driver of employment. According to the Small Business Administration, businesses with fewer than 500 employees account for more than half of American workers. Also, “While small firms create a majority of the net new jobs, their share of employment remains steady since some firms grow into large firms as they create new jobs.”

Your chamber is here to help you through this soft patch. Through the events and courses we offer, our goal is to help you build the relationships you need to succeed. That’s why Monica Wofford will be talking to us Thursday about leadership. That’s why we’ve lined up teachers to help you build your business and claim your place in the Seven Mountains of Culture. And that’s why, on any given Friday, you can meet with your peers to brainstorm answers to the challenges you face in your business.

As Christian businesspeople, we don’t face these tough times alone. We are part of a family of faith that serves a mighty God. So when the stock market wavers and nonfarm payrolls are down and the European debt situation starts looking pretty bleak, take heart. He has overcome the world.