It just occurred to me how much healthier our nation’s economy is already because all of the underlying bad investments and perilous structures that have been exposed, collapsed, and/or are in the process of being flushed out. Who knew that our whole economy was built with such precarious underpinnings? But when the economy “comes back” to life, it will no longer be sitting on the same faulty supporting structures, but rather on more healthy and realistic ones.

Yet, this massive collapse has given our nation a rare chance for a new beginning—one that would have been too hard to bring about ourselves and too hard to accept had it not been “forced” upon us.

There is definitely a spiritual principle here: If we don’t build our lives on the solid ground of Jesus Christ, then our faulty foundations will eventually be exposed and cave in, for all that can be shaken will be shaken. (Matthew 7:24-27; Hebrews 12:26-28)  Sometimes a “building” has to be torn all the way down to make way for a new and better “structure” to be built in place of it.

Likewise, at times it takes a drastic breakdown in our lives to discover “what lies beneath” in us. Once exposed and dealt with, God can bring about within us massive transformation for the better.