Groundhog day... or a new creation?

I just finished reading "When Genius Failed", which is the story of the spectacular collapse of Long Term Capital Management in the late 90s.  LTCM was a hedge fund which famously lost billions and collapsed within a few months, and caused financial mayhem along the way.  I found two things disturbing in the aftermath:

One, you would have thought the leaders of the financial industry who were responsible for rescuing LTCM in 1998 would have learned the hard lessons of excessive borrowing (leverage) and the potential for the sudden disappearance of buyers/sellers from the market (liquidity).  But the names involved in the LTCM rescue were largely the same characters in charge when the global financial crisis struck just 10 years later - Jimmy Cayne (Bear Stearns, which collapsed), Dick Fuld (Lehman, which also collapsed), Jon Corzine (then-Goldman, later MF Global, which has collapsed), John Thain (then-Goldman, later Merrill which nearly collapsed and had to be acquired by BoA), Marcel Ospel (UBS - which had its own serious troubles too)...

Two, I Wikipedia-ed what happened to John Meriwether (LTCM's founder) after LTCM's collapse.  According to Wikipedia, just one year after LTCM collapsed, John Meriwether had secured US$250m in investment for a new hedge fund, which started operations in 1999.  By 2007, the new fund had US$3b under management.  The sub-prime and subsequent global financial crisis of 2007-2009 caused the fund to lose 44% and John Meriwether closed the fund in 2009.  Believe it or not, he now has a third fund.  And all three funds are proudly advertised as using the same model which failed to survive the preceding two crises!

So what's the lesson here?  It seems men are loath to learn from our mistakes!  If so, are we all doomed to endlessly repeat the mistakes of the past in an ever-widening spiral of destruction?  We work long hours to advance our careers, cajole our children to study hard, worry about our health, invest in houses and buy cars, even fervently read up on self-help books on all of the above.  Yet all the while we make the same mistakes everyone else has made again and again.  And how do we react?  Most of us re-double our efforts, prepare more thoroughly (for the next mistake!), work harder, worry more...  all to no apparent avail.  This all seems terribly bleak and depressing.

Many of us struggle furiously, but find ourselves endlessly stuck in the same rut.  For some of us, it's the endless rat race in the workplace.  For others, it's the perpetual fear of our children not getting the best out of their education.  For yet others, it's the building of fortunes, houses, cars, bags and assorted gew-gaws to feed our unceasing appetite for just more stuff.  As we get older, there's the growing obsession with health and fitness, as our mortality seems ever more evident.

The awful part is this - by the time we realize it's all meaningless, many of us are already in our middle years.  This then tacks on guilt and regret on top of everything else!  Is it then too late?

Thankfully, there is one promise of lasting change - a break from a futile past.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!".

I'm blessed to know SK, who came to know Jesus relatively late in life.  In his words, life has never been the same again.  Knowing that he came to know Jesus only later in life, he has really made up time by serving wholeheartedly.  Today, I look to SK as my spiritual mentor, and he and his wife are a great example to me and my family for the way that he leads his life.  As I see his obedience and heart of service, it's clear to me that it's never too late to reap the benefits of putting our lives in the hands of our loving God.

So many of us, having known God for a long time, or at least having heard of God, still refuse to break our old habits.  Some of us loosely make and then repeatedly break promises to spend quiet time with God, putting our own plans above listening and obeying His.  Some of us tell ourselves that we will think about God, or take Him more seriously when we're done with our careers, when our children are grown up, or when we're less busy, or less tired.  Some of us even think it's just too late.  We've already spent most of our energy and time chasing the wind, and have no more left for God.  But as SK has shown me, it's never too late to make that life-changing decision to turn away from endless futility and enter into abundant fruitfulness.

Mark 1:16-18 describes how Jesus called the disciples Simon and Andrew.  Come, follow me, He said.  And at once, Simon and Andrew left their nets and followed Him.

Are you tired of running like a hamster in its wheel?  Perhaps you're sick of the promises you keep making and breaking.  Make a change today.  At once.  Don't wait any more.  Don't run even one more useless circle.  Stop endlessly chasing after human wisdom - LTCM had two brilliant Nobel prize winners (Merton and Scholes, creator of the famed Black-Scholes model) and they still failed. 

Albert Einstein astutely observed that "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result."  I've put my life in Jesus' hands.  And I tell you, it is a different result.  Bad, even terrible things still happen.  As long as we're here on earth, that will always be the case.  But all things work for the good of those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.  And His purpose, His plan, is one designed to give us a hope and an eternal future.  You'll experience unconditional love, irrepressible joy and deep, abiding peace.  You'll love people more.  You'll find clear purpose.  You'll draw others to you because you will be a light, a city on a hill, in an otherwise confusing, murky and seemingly futile world.  In other words, you'll be a new creation, dearly loved by our awesome God.