And now our best guess

I'm not sure what to make of yesterday's pre-budget speech by Mr Darling. What has always worried me about this government is its consistent over optimistic assessment of economic growth. I seem to remember previous budgets and pre-budget reports announcing growth that never materialised. On the other hand, ideologically, the alternatives are not very attractive.

Not that I assume that all that has gone wrong in the economy this year is because of this government and this government alone. There are decisions that were made in the early 80's that must surely share some of responsibility.

The question for those of us who say we trust in God is how exactly do we express that trust in times of economic turmoil. Jon Ortberg, in the talk I watched yesterday, spoke about three expressions of faith: public, private and core. The public expression consists of those things we say we believe but that aren't true. For example, Herod told the Magi that he too wanted to visit the new king, but that wasn't his intention at all. 

Secondly he talked about private expressions of faith. These are things we think we believe but when push comes to shove it turns out that we don't truly believe them at all, or at least don't act upon them as we ought. Peter's denial of Jesus is an example of this. When Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to be arrested and they will all desert him Peter says, "Not me, I won't desert you." But he did.

The third expression of faith are our core beliefs. These are the things that truly shape our behaviour. According to Ortberg we can never deny these core beliefs, we will always act in accordance with them. 

The goal of maturing faith is to align our core beliefs with those of Jesus. When it comes to facing economic uncertainty I suspect our core beliefs about money and financial security, about the kingdom of God and whether we do or don't worry about what to eat and wear will come into clearer focus.

Perhaps Alistair Darling is over optimistic about future growth, perhaps his plans will plunge us into the worst national debt crisis history has ever seen. Perhaps not. I don't know, but what I do know is that if my core beliefs are truly aligned to those of Jesus then my perspective on these things will be different. I'll still question the wisdom of government at times, I'll still seek to steward my finances wisely, but I won't lie awake at night worrying about it all. 

At least that's my intention.