The enemy is despair – Situation in Zimbabwe

It was an extremely fascinating read as he described the crisis now surrounding the developed world. Country after country, he showed statistics about the number of suicides and declining life expectancy in the most developed countries of the world.

He explained the phenomenon of Donald Trump and the Maga movement in the United States, which seems to have taken over the American political system with terrifying consequences. Next week we will find out whether Kamala Harris’ nomination will save the US. He highlighted the impact of the collapse of so many industries that had supported the growth and quality of life for so many in developed countries and were now just rusting buildings in the wilderness. The fact that these countries still have historically high incomes and low unemployment does not seem to have any impact. People feel like they are worse off; the so-called ‘Rust Belt’ states of the US are the key states in the Maga movement.

My grandson was going to leave school and study mass communications. He even made a short film that was shortlisted for an award in Egypt. However, he is an active Christian (as am I) and became involved in several youth groups in local churches. As a result, he connected with young people who come from families with high incomes and good schools, for whom the world is their oyster, but a common trait was loneliness and despair. Many use drugs, others consider suicide. He was so challenged that he changed careers and is in his third year of psychology at university. With this he wants to help this lost generation.

Ferguson compared today’s US to a replica of the Soviet Union in its final days. He pointed out that when that communist giant fell apart and revealed its total bankruptcy as an empire, people turned to alcohol on a scale never before seen in history. In the US, the epidemic of drug abuse and alcohol is of similar magnitude. I remember traveling to Europe for the first time and finding a continent where Christianity was a reminder of things past. A good friend in France who was a brilliant economist said to me when I was describing my faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ, “You should be sitting in a glass case in a museum!”

My conclusion was that France was the most godless country in the world, and I see nothing today that can change that opinion. In Africa, atheism and agnosticism are unheard of; the idea that God does not exist is simply impossible. True, Christianity is certainly not the only religion, but the idea of ​​a world without God in its history is simply not considered possible.

In contrast, the developed world, which owes its prosperity and strength to a faith it once held, is now largely secular. In the US, there is little understanding that the Constitution that guides their life as a nation was written by men of faith who knew their Bibles and based their ideas on accountability to God and faith in His word. It faithfully reflects biblical values ​​and standards and has worked.

Intellectually speaking, it can be difficult to justify a belief in God in this crazy world, but all I can do is relate to personal experiences and extrapolate them to the world around me. A professor at one of Britain’s major universities became a Christian. So did CS Lewis, later in life, and wrote a book called “Good God, it Works.” That’s my real life experience. I grew up in an agnostic family where we never even had a Bible. We never went to church and faith played no role in our lives. My father, a smart, even brilliant man, a successful businessman, became a full-blown alcoholic when I was a young boy, and we were raised by a single mother for several years.

I first heard the Gospel when I was looking for a friend whose family was Presbyterian and accidentally went to the wrong church. I had no idea what it was all about, but made a decision in confidence on the Stoop of the Ranch I was working on. It changed my whole life, not in theory, but in reality, and later in life I had the pleasure of seeing my father, turning to Christ and becoming a new man. Since then, over 60 years of faith, I have seen this transformation in lives many times.

It is impossible to understand the little blue ball on which we live in endless space without faith in God. If you read books about life in the Soviet Union, you will come across a book called “The Cancer Ward”. In this story, the author writes about a science city built in a remote location where the Soviets kept their top scientists isolated. Isolation because when they studied space or matter they saw design, order and evidence of creation. They could not deny the reality of God’s existence in an atheistic society.

Look around you at the world you live in; the evidence of God the Creator is everywhere. And if He is real in space and time, then there must be a purpose for life on earth. Purpose is the answer to despair. It gives meaning to life in all its forms. If you don’t have this in your life, everything you do loses meaning, nothing has real value. I have relatives who are extremely wealthy; there is no evidence that they are happier than a simple worker in one of their factories who has a faith.

So I agree with Ferguson: the evidence that the West is in decline is everywhere, but it is not because the empire has run out of power. It is because the moral and ethical values ​​that created the society, economy and culture they enjoy were based on faith, a faith they have abandoned.

The victims of this are everywhere. Broken homes, children who don’t know whether they are boys or girls, record suicide rates in wealthy countries and communities. Loneliness in busy cities, a feeling of despair and even hopelessness. The almost complete collapse of integrity in business and life, corruption is endemic and massive and respect for all basic human rights is more often ignored than respected. Leaders who worship power and wealth and pay no attention to those in need.

And in all these circumstances there is a danger of the emergence of strong leaders with a false vision of a new world, while the old one is dying. Germany with Hitler, Russia after the Tsar and Marx with his completely wrong view of history and the future, but who offered hope where there was none. Mau after the collapse of Chinese society. Trump in the US I await the emergence of the next monsters in Europe, because they will certainly emerge.

Ferguson has raised a very serious issue, namely that the developed economies of the world are built on debt. The world of faith has created enormous surpluses of wealth in recent centuries. These have allowed countries to borrow based on their balance sheets and revenues. China and Japan are the worst examples where debt now amounts to 250 percent of GDP. The US has a national debt of more than 100 percent of GDP, but also has other forms of debt, such as credit card liabilities, that are enormous.

As any economist will tell you, this debt isn’t real; it is printed money that has value because a banker says it has value. If this is lost, the currency collapses and those of us who live in Zimbabwe know what happens: it destroys your savings and destroys your income. This is the hidden threat facing the entire world today.