Richard Cohen works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
President Trump announced yesterday a ninety-day pause on higher tariffs for dozens of countries while hiking levies on China to 125 percent. The Dow Jones surged nearly three thousand points on the news for its largest rally in five years. The Nasdaq Composite jumped more than 12 percent as well, its second-best day ever. The S&P 500 had its biggest one-day gain in seventeen years.
About thirty billion shares traded hands, comprising the heaviest volume day on Wall Street in history. World markets soared this morning as well, with Japan’s benchmark jumping more than 9 percent.
If the world made your life an island
The recent volatility of an economy most of us have no way to influence highlights the degree to which you and I are “catching and not pitching” in the modern world. Think about it: How much of your life is under your direct control? Do you personally determine your income? Do you grow your own food and chop your own firewood for heat? Can you fix your car if it breaks down? Can you treat yourself if you get really sick?
If the world made your life an island, how long and how well would you live on it?
We all want to believe we are in charge of our lives, a “will to power” impulse that goes back to the garden of Eden and the temptation to be our own god (Genesis 3:5). Advertisers know this, which is why they pitch us products and services that claim to help us control our finances, circumstances, health, and happiness. But the next downturn, disaster, illness, or disappointment will pull back the curtain on our illusion.
The roof collapse at a Dominican Republic nightclub that killed at least 184 people, including two former major league baseball players, is a tragic metaphor for our times. None of us knows when we will be next.
This is where you’d expect me to recommend faith as an antidote to our fears. A sign I recently saw comes to mind: “Accept what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be.”
But in a broken and chaotic world, having faith is not enough.
It can make things worse rather than better, in fact.
What Einstein got wrong about the universe
You and I have a binary choice today: We can define our identity with reference to ourselves and/or other people, or we can do so with reference to God. If we decide that our secularist society is right in rejecting God from consideration, we are left with some version of humanity defining humanity and the cosmos.
Even Albert Einstein fell prey to this “category mistake” fallacy by claiming that physical laws are the universe’s own form of self-expression. If we refuse to interpret creation through the lens of the Creator and his revealed truth, we are forced to interpret it through itself. This is what we do with our own quest for identity as well when we eliminate God from the equation.
How did this work for Einstein? The great scientist was known for being unfaithful to both his wives and for his failures as a father. How is it working for our broken society today?
By contrast, David could testify: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust” (Psalm 18:2 NKJV). Why should we do the same?
It is a fact that “the Lᴏʀᴅ reigns” and “is exalted over all the peoples” (Psalm 99:1, 2), whether “all the peoples” acknowledge this fact or not. Charles III is king of the United Kingdom whether every person in his kingdom recognizes his rule or not. Those who reject his authority only exempt themselves from what he could do in and for their lives.
In the same way, sacrificial obedience to the King of the universe positions us to experience his transforming and sanctifying power (cf. Romans 12:1–2). Being our own king limits us to our finite, fallen capacities.
Bonhoeffer on “the wisest course for the disciple”
So, having faith helps us respond to our challenges only if the object of that faith is able to respond to our challenges. Otherwise, misplaced faith does more harm than good. We can take the wrong medicine in sincere faith, but it can still poison and kill us.
Having faith in ourselves, others, or our world builds our house on sand. When the inevitable storms strike, our house will inevitably fall (Matthew 7:26–27). Building the same house on the rock of Jesus’ word, by contrast, enables it to stand firm (vv. 24–25). Our Lord was adamant: “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).
Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1945 martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In a website paper I wrote for the occasion, I quoted the great theologian’s statement in The Cost of Discipleship: “It will always be true that the wisest course for the disciple” is “to abide solely by the Word of God in all simplicity.”
Bonhoeffer staked his life and his eternity on this fact. When he was led away to his death just a week before the Allies liberated his prison camp, he told another prisoner, “This is the end—but for me, the beginning—of life.”
How can we make his empowering faith in God our own?
How to be “powerful in his power”
The English poet Ralph Hodgson noted, “Some things have to be believed to be seen.” St. Augustine similarly observed, “Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.”
So, name the reason you need faith in God today. Decide that you want to trust in his power and wisdom over your own. Now ask him to help you “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:17), and he will (Mark 9:24).
The British essayist Joseph Addison (1672–1719) assured us:
“The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.”
How firm is your trust in your Father today?
Quote for the day:
“Yet, in the maddening maze of things / And tossed by storm and flood / To one fixed trust my spirit clings / I know that God is good!” —John Greenleaf Whittier
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