Economic Recovery … addiction number 9

Building on previous posts …
9. The addiction to short-term gains over long-term ones, whether we’re talking about the short-term gain of dollars (in the economic sector), victories (in the military sector), elections (in the government sector), or “butts in seats” (in the religious sector). When we think of how our elected leaders and business leaders were asleep at the wheel, failing to see the current crisis coming and failing to take evasive action if they did … we know their range of foresight has been pretty small. When we think about how some religious leaders put winning the next short-term battle in their “culture war” over the long-term well-being of larger mission of the church, we see similar patterns. The issue, though, isn’t simply to blame others: it’s to face our own need for recovery, because we’re all caught in this addiction cycle.