Historians will record this current, unprecedented period in world history as a financial tsunami that left in its wake millions of foreclosed homes, bankruptcies, lost jobs, and fractured families. Governments, as if competing to abandon the basic tenets of capitalism, have thrown money at banks, investment companies, and huge insurers in an attempt to restore trust and kick-start the flow of capital.

As analysts have begun picking through the ruins of the financial collapse, they started dusting off old-fashioned words: greed, moderation, integrity, and trust. We’ve had a massive dose of greed, but moderation, integrity and trust have been in short supply. When executives line their pockets at the expense of employees and shareholders, when banks make irresponsible speculative loans with little likelihood of payback, when borrowers walk away from good-faith contracts, the global financial system collapses, because a fully functioning and thriving economy can only be held together by a thin web of trust.

This has been the most financially volatile periods, since 1929, where we have seen global stock markets drop like a stone by trillions of dollars.  Zimbabwe's inflation rate hit a record 231 million percent!  In other words, if you had saved $1 million Zimbabwean dollars by Monday, on Tuesday it was worth $158! It might not be surprising to know that the most asked question in this crisis, by people not noted for their spirituality is; "Tell me how a person should pray during a crisis such as this?" The right question, with a three-stage approach.

HELP!
The first stage is simple, an instinctive cry of: "Help!" For someone who faces a job cut or health crisis or watches retirement savings disappear into a ‘black hole’, prayer offers a way to voice fear and anxiety.
When you pray, resist the tendency to edit your prayers so that they sound sophisticated and mature.  Believe me God wants us to come to Him exactly as we are, and to speak as we feel, no matter how childlike or uncomfortable we may feel in praying.  A God aware of every sparrow that falls surely knows the impact of scary financial times on fearful and frail human beings.

Indeed, prayer provides the best possible place to take our fears. As an example for prayers in crisis, I look at Jesus' night in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing the crucifixion lay ahead. The Bible records He threw himself on the ground three times, sweat falling from his body like drops of blood, and felt "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." In the midst of that anguish, however, his prayer changed from "Take this cup from me" to "May your will be done." In the scenes of trial that followed, Jesus was the calmest person present. His time of prayer had relieved him of anxiety, reaffirmed his trust in a loving Father, and strengthened him to face the horror that He was about to endure.

MEDITATION AND REFLECTION 
If I pray with the intent to listen as well as talk, we can enter into a second stage, that of meditation and reflection. Okay, for some our life savings has virtually disappeared. What can I learn from this seeming catastrophe? In the midst of the financial news, a song I learned as a child at Sunday school kept running through my mind:

The wise man built his house upon the rock …
And the rain came down, and the floods came up,
And the house on the rock stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand …
And the rain came down, and the floods came up,
And the house on the sand fell flat!

A time of crisis presents a good opportunity to identify the foundation on which we construct our life. If we place our ultimate trust in financial institutions, or in the government's ability to solve our problems, we will surely watch the basement flood and the walls crumble.

You see the Bible asks three main questions about money:

(a) How did you get it? (Legally and justly or exploitatively?);

(b) What are you doing with it? (Indulging in luxuries, investing it wisely, helping the needy?);

(c) What is it doing to you?
Some of Jesus' most incisive parables and sayings go straight to the heart of that last question.

 This sobering fact leads us to the third and most difficult stage of prayer in a crisis: We need God's help in taking our eyes off our own problems in order to look with compassion on the truly desperate.

SHARING OUR WEALTH
Jesus taught us to pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and we know that heaven will include no homeless, destitute, or starving people. As the stock market dives to uncharted depths, my mind couldn't help but think of how charitable bodies such as hospices, vital children’s groups, and the vulnerable elderly will survive these tough times. Then there are overseas mission agencies, and other international charities all of which depend heavily on the largesse of donors.
What a testimony to our Christian faith it would be if, from today, we resolved to financially continue or to start giving to such groups detailed above, and to announce Biblical values to a greedy, decadent, celebrity-driven culture.
Such a response defies all logic and common sense — unless, of course, we take seriously the moral of Jesus' simple instruction about building houses on a sure foundation.

Jesus said. ”……Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and the rains descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”  (Matthew 7:24