“This is how the Lord responds: “If you return to me, I will restore you so you can continue to serve me. If you speak good words rather than worthless ones, you will be my spokesman. You must influence them; do not let them influence you!”

Well, that was a wild stock market week last week!  And if all indicators are correct we are in for more of the same for a bit.  Welcome to a U.S. Presidential Election year and a year of global turmoil and unrest that will probably have us reeling.  What is really interesting is that in 2015, there were basically what are being called “The Nifty Nine” (Microsoft, Salesforce, eBay, Starbucks, Priceline, Facebook, Amazon, NetFlix and Google) that held the stock market up to at least flat year over year performance.  And even within that nine, the smaller set of what is called “The FANGs” (Facebook, Amazon, NetFlix, and Google) drove the most increases.  The stock market exchanges are made up of thousands of companies and the subset of nine and then inside that, four, made all the difference.  And, interesting too, these are not the largest companies by revenue or market capitalization.  They just, as a subset, because of their ownership and performance, have a huge impact.

And so can we.  Never doubt that we, as a small subset of believers in our workplaces and neighborhoods, can’t make a huge impact.  We can because we have surrendered our life’s ownership to Him and if we do our best to live in His way and will, then the impact we can have on the life of another can be eternal.

Reference:  Jeremiah 15:19 (New Living Translation)