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Writer's pictureJoe Hines

Is Your Life a House of Cards?


Do you put too much faith and hope in things of this world?


As human beings we are so gullible. We put so much faith in so many foolish things. We don’t even recognize we are doing it because we are just following the crowd. But when things begin to unfold, we feel a loss of control we really never had. We feel empty, naked, and insecure because our hope and faith were built on things like a house of cards.


The Foolish Things

We believe that our job will be in place tomorrow. The income will come. Our pension check will continue. The government will always be stable enough to provide our Social Security Benefits and our Medicare insurance.


Because of this we purchase things with debt, relying on a tremendously uncertain future.


We save in our retirement and investment accounts. We invest in stocks of companies in the US and internationally. What puts value on that company stock? The value of a company is based on what it can earn in the future. Our faith is in the assumption that they may be able to sell enough widgets or provide enough services that people want. This is what establishes the value of company stock. It is all about what they may do in the future. Many things can happen to impact the very uncertain future.


We save up cash for emergencies. The US dollar is the safest place in the world to have your money, right? Who says that piece of paper is worth anything? It is based collectively on people’s opinions and belief that it has value.


Gold has been around forever and has been a means of exchange for goods and services. What places value on gold? It is a lump of metal. It is only worth what someone else says it is worth and is willing to pay you.


Real estate, specifically land, is something that will never go away. Well, maybe. But who assigns a specific value? It is only worth what some else is willing to pay.


The value placed on things of this world is only what other people say the value is. Think about that for a minute! We are depending on other people to assign value to something. It is scary when you think about that truth.


Weak Minded

We build our world of things. Again, those things are only valuable because other people say it is. Our world is built around our job, our income, our home, our savings accounts, retirement accounts, investment accounts, and businesses.


We are so weak minded that we become dependent on these things. Our world is built around the dependence of other people. They will fail and disappoint us at some point. When they don’t work out as we believe they should, or as the world believes, our house of cards tumbles. It will tumble. We will be disappointed.


In 1 Timothy 6 Paul tells us not “to put our hope in wealth, which is so uncertain but to put our hope in God, which richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” He says all wealth is so uncertain. All earthly wealth is uncertain - Stocks, gold, cash, real estate, the value of our businesses, the value of our homes, etc. We are relying on the crowd, other people. We are banking our trust, our hope, our faith, and our future, on others. People are so uncertain. Wealth is so uncertain. The only One who is certain is God.


Investing in stocks, real estate, land and saving for retirement is not necessarily wrong. But we must understand that these things are so uncertain. We cannot put our hope in these things because at some point they may fail. We will all experience some form of failure from things of this world.


True Hope

History proves it but we easily forget things such as, stock markets crash, real estate values go up and down, currencies devalue, and nations fall! But the Lord is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He will not fail you or abandon you (Deuteronomy 31:8).


october 13, 2020

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