This is something that happened to my investment account over the past year that I only became aware of last week. You may think that it is blind luck, but I believe it was the grace of God at work.

Now, Carolyn and I have an automatic debit set up between our checking account and our investment account, and every month a pre-set amount of money is taken out and used to purchase investments shares. Last week, as I was doing our taxes, I looked back at our investment statements for 2008 and found something odd. Apparently, money was being taken out of our checking account but none of it was actually being invested. Confused and slightly worried, I called my financial advisor Ross for clarification.

Ross looked into it and found out what had happened. Back in April 08, I needed to spend some extra money for the wedding, so I stopped the monthly investment. But after the wedding, in September 08, Carolyn and I went in to see Ross so that we could put both our names on a joint account. It was there that we asked him to restart our monthly contributions into our investments again. He set up the monthly automatic debit, but completely forgot to set up the system to purchase shares using those contributions!

Now, normally, one might be a little upset at this kind of thing. But you know that the stock market has not been doing very well in the past couple months. Consider the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2008:


In April (first circle) when I temporarily stopped investing, it was near its 12 month high. In September (second circle), when I wanted to start investing again, it was about to plunge due to the Lehman Bros bank crash on the 14th of that month.

This is not to say that my portfolio hasn't lost value over the last year or that any future investment decisions that I make will make me a lot of money. But it is a reminder that God is greater than this current economic downturn and that nothing is beyond His power.

He will not let your foot be moved;
   he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalm 121:1-4)