The Big Bailout

Greetings,
     It seems as if the watchword of the day is "bailout".  Everyone and everything is receiving a bailout these days.  From Chrysler and Fannie Mae to JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo,  businesses and banks are deemed "too big to fail".  In all honesty I am not really sure what that exactly means.  I imagine it probably has something to do with the fact that if these companies came crashing down around their economic heels that national economic disaster is soon to follow.  Again, all that might be true, I am not an economist and I don't even play one on TV!  What I do know is that our country has spent over 700 billion dollars on over 926 recipients from what we called the TARP bill (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and our country still has a troubled asset relief program.
     All of that is disturbing enough but that is not what gets my mind turning inside my skull.  The question that rattles around inside my head is.."With all of the turmoil  brewing inside of our country, does the United States of America need a bailout?"  I am not talking about the companies of the United States. I am talking about the United States itself.  Just as we looked at the banks and car companies some three years ago and realized that their success directly impacted the success of the American people, can't we look at he United States today and make the same correlation?  If the men and women of this great nation are going to strive in their daily lives they are going to have to do it in a nation that is striving. We are standing on a precipice that is fixing our gazing into an abyss of nothing short of pure disaster.  Financial ruin, crime, drugs, and despair fill the streets of our cities and it is only getting worse. The stakes for us are too high!  We are too big to fail!  We need a bailout!
     On the surface this statement could seem hypocritical.  Sure, Derek, Fannie Mae doesn't deserve it but you do?! In a word, yes!  I think we, as a people, don't deserve a bailout but we get one.  When God created the earth He stepped back for a moment and declared it good.  He then watched as His creation took His gift of free choice and turned their lives into a bastion of idol worship to man made gods.  God soon became so disappointed with us that He decided we needed a, wait for it,.....BAILOUT!
     That's right!  In simple terms, the flood of Noah was nothing more than a bailout, a do-over, a start over and let's get it right this time.  God had seen the wickedness and sin of the world and He knew that He needed to wipe the slate clean.  The world got a bailout.  Now, unfortunately for the people of the times, they didn't get a chance to be a part of the bailout because they perished in the flood.  But even in those days I believe that God knew something...His world was too big of an idea to fail!
     Today, the same idea is true.  The bailout principle exists except I wouldn't really call it a bailout.  Today each one of us has the opportunity to begin our lives anew, to start over, to begin again. Do we get to erase all of our debts?  Financially, no, sinfully, yes.  Can forgiveness be found?  Perhaps not in the eyes of man but, more importantly, in the eyes of a Savior.  You see, God's bailout is not a quick fix for a temporary problem.  God's bailout is an eternal forgiveness for a life of sin.  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" John 3:16.
     God is telling us..."my child, you are too big to fail!" "My plan is too big to fail!"  "I have a plan that cannot fail!"  If you are looking for a better way, that way is Jesus Christ.  You are too big to FAIL!

Blessings,

Derek