Last week I attended a real estate law seminar. My practice involves a little bit of real estate work, but I am pretty diversified with other practice areas. Whether that is really good or not is a question for another day. But, in this context it was a good thing because there was a lot of discussion of the downturn in the real estate market, the mortgage crisis, and less money to borrow from the banks. All of these things were really causing some law firms to have a harder time paying the bills each month. We heard of one firm in Atlanta whose sole client was a large sub-prime lender who went out of business. The day after the bank closed, the law firm closed. This law firm included several attorneys and many staff. All out of a job.
Along with a slow market comes more claims against attorneys for not picking up little details because they were so busy making money on these closings that it didn’t matter. They may miss a detail or overlook something important or forget to reconcile their trust account for a closing, but because so much money was going through there, they didn’t get caught. Until now.
All of this talk brought up an old Wall Street quote, “when the tide comes in it floats all boats.” Basically, if you can hold on until the tide comes back in and the market turns around, the market will save your business. This particular law firm, and many like it, couldn’t wait on the tide to come in. Their boat sank.
There is a Warren Buffett quote in response to the Wall Street quote: “When the tide goes out you can see who has been swimming naked.”
People and businesses that haven’t been exercising good business practices and have been working on the edge because the tide would save them are now having trouble “covering themselves up” because the tide has gone out. They have been caught skinny dipping.
Have you been caught with you pants down because you thought the tide of life was going to keep you covered? A lot of things that cause us the most trouble are hidden just under the surface where we think they are safely out of sight of everyone around us. We just skip over the little things because “no one will notice.” But just like the sub-prime lenders and the law firms who were making tons of money, you and I have been or will be exposed.
I know that I fall short all the time and I frustrate God and do not make him proud sometimes. I keep my sin hidden in the dark so no one else can see. But thankfully I serve a God of grace, love, hope and forgiveness. Though I strive to serve Him in a blameless manner, I fail. I do take hope that the Apostle Paul, someone who served Jesus Christ in an awesome way also struggled with sin and recorded his struggles in Romans 7: 18-25, where he states, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
While we are human, we should strive for Christ-likeness. To live free from sin. But we know that we will struggle with sin just as the Apostle Paul did. But we are thankful for the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus on the cross that rescues us from our sin.
