In the New Testament,
the Greek word for “peace” is eirene, and it means rest and tranquility. The advent of our Lord Jesus brought peace as
announced by the angels. Our Lord is called Prince of Peace. It is through His atoning work of
justification that we can have peace with God.
Peace is the fruit of the Spirit God and to set our minds on the Spirit
will bring us life and peace. Rom
8:16. And that peace of God will keep
our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:7.
John 16:13
I have said these things
to you, that in me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart, I have overcome the world.
True peace can only be found in abiding in Christ.
If
any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all
without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask,
you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of
the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
The whole world is facing inflation and high energy prices. Believers in the lower income group need to seek the Lord’s wisdom to mitigate the cost of living. Through early effort to preempt inflationary ills, one can stay calm and less stressful. Otherwise stress may affect one’s health which will be another expense not to incur.
Here are some common sense tips that will help to manage the mortgage, utility, grocery and other bills.
Mortgage Payment. With the US Federal Reserve likely to increase the interest rates to somewhere between 3 to 4% soon, the central banks of all nations will likely hike the same or more. It is wise to seek fixed re-financing if one is unable to absorb such increases in his or her monthly expense budget. With the housing prices still high now, downgrading to a smaller and less costly apartment is another alternative.
Utility Bill. One should study all the electricity plans offered by the various energy providers right away and decide on a fixed plan so that he or she will not be shocked with hefty increase in the near future. Choose the quasi-governmental provider if possible. The Europeans woke up one day to find the price of gas went up by a few times.
Grocery Bill. One should re-evaluate his or her diet and settle for a nutritious and economic diet replacing expensive fruits and vegetables with those of cheaper and similar nutritional value. Sometimes eating out at the economy rice food-stall may be more economical than cooking because of the economy of scale. (Exercise more to keep fit. Exercise is also a good way of relieving stress.)
Discretionary Expenses. Stop all non-essential expenses to build up an emergency savings fund.
Transport. If possible, switch from private transport to public transport. That will relieve all kinds of unexpected car related hefty expenses.
After the Fed Reserve hiked the interest rates to 3 to 3.25% on 22 Sep 2022, the following events happened very quickly :
Bond bloodbath. We nearly saw a Lehman-like crisis in the UK. The UK pension funds were selling gilts frantically due to margin call on their leveraged bets. And the Bank of England had to reverse course of tightening and did quantitative easing to calm the markets while having the worst inflation in recent history. With the easy money policy that lasted for so long, we would assume that the cumulative lucrative leveraged bets over the years have grown to gargantuan proportions.
Currency rout. The Bank of Japan had to sell treasuries to prop up the yen. The British pound was pounded negative 7.4% in 2 days. They are behind the US curve in hiking interest rates.
Energy crisis. The Russian gas pipe lines Nord Stream 1 and 2 were sabotaged. Many EU economies are dependent on Russian gas. UK is already expecting utility rates to double or triple causing much economic hardship to the lower income groups.
Housing price deceleration. This is expected as the US average mortgage rate has hit above 7%.
Bear global stock markets. All major stock markets are in bear territory. The US stock markets had probably lost USD 8 trillion dollars or more in the slow train wreck in one year. Likewise for the rest of the western capitalism states. All previous market routs paled in comparison.
All economies are caught between the rock of increasing interest rates to fight inflation and the hard place of quantitative tightening in a period entering technical recession or rapidly slowing growth.
You can see the colossal losses in the stock markets just in the US. (See the charts and links below.) Due to media censorship, much hardship faced by the rest of the world is not reported.
The current crisis indeed followed the 7 year apocalypse since Sep 2001, Sep 2008 and Sep 2015 in term of severity of adverse market conditions. But will the whole financial system collapse soon ? Our Lord is sovereign and He alone decides when He will destroy all wealth in one hour. Rev 18:17-19. All glory and honor to our Lord.
Postscript I:
I noticed the sudden intensity of famine, earthquakes and other natural disasters. The Horn of Africa faces the worst drought in history and requires grain relief or will face terrible famine. There were several earthquakes measuring Richter scale 7 happening within 2 weeks in various places around the world. The Hurricane Ian caused the worst economic damage to the state of Florida estimated at USD 260 billion. The Florida governor said it was the worst 500 year flooding event.
When I prayed the last time in 2016 to know the time for the global collapse, I was given the parable of the wicked tenants. This parable appeared in 3 passages : Matt 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19. I only read Luke 20:9-19 then and I mis-read that there would be only 3 attempts to recover the rent by the vineyard owner before he came to destroy these tenants. It was actually 4. The other 2 passages have more attempts than 4. The major stock markets have crashed four times in Sep 2001, Sep 2008, Sep 2015 and Sep 2022 (not counting Feb 2020 at the start of the pandemic). When will the final one come ?
