I have always been a military history aficionado, but after I taught world history for a few years I expanded my interest. Even though we as humans have great memories, can store vast amounts of data, and fill huge libraries with volumes of historical works, we don’t learn from history. Moreover, if we don’t like what history teaches, we simply re-construct it to suit our current thinking, Now, I am not an expert on economy (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once!), but the recent economic issues remind me of observations I made from history.

The Roman Empire was one of the longest lasting empires in history. When the Visigoths finally stormed Rome’s gates they did not conquer the empire, they merely sealed the fate of an empire that was already dead. The Roman Empire was not felled by the sword, but by the internal problems of political & commercial corruption, deceit, greed, immorality, high taxes, oppression, indulgence, and sloth.

Well, I can’t help but observe the same signs in our nation. We can point fingers at the Republicans, blame the Democrats, accuse incompetent CEOs, ad infinitum, but the reality is we are all to blame. We have embraced and taught to our children a materialistic, self-indulgent, instant gratification lifestyle. We have been duped by the illusion of prosperity - a standard of living beyond our means that matches our expectations.  Consequently we have created (or at the least perpetrated) a system to get what we want.  Now, with all that threatened our leaders scramble to avoid responsibility and somehow restore what we had.  We so want to have our illusion back, to continue our lifestyle, and cover up our sin

… but it is built on sand.

“But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." – Jesus in Matthew 7:26-27

Is it a bad thing? Is it a good thing? Or is it an opportunity for us to change? Is it a chance for you to rebuild?