’tis The Season To Trust Series

INTRO.- Listen to this horror story.

Get Ready to Live on $190 a Month. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Are you prepared to live on $190 a month when you retire?

For most Americans in their 50s, that’s all the personal savings they’ll have to look forward to during retirement, according to Wells Fargo’s annual retirement survey.

The survey, which polled nearly 2,000 middle-class Americans ranging from 20 to 60 years old, found that Americans aren’t saving enough, they are underestimating the amount of money they will need in retirement, and they are more likely to end up working through retirement. (yep, like most have to!)

While most Americans predict they will need a nest egg of $300,000 to live on for 19 years in retirement, the average savings of 50-somethings is only $29,000, which comes out to an income of $190 a month over 20 years assuming a 5% rate of return.

"$190 a month is not going to cut it," said Laurie Nordquist, co-head of Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement and Trust. "This reinforces the huge gap in terms of what people are going to need and what people have. They have a little time to add to that nest egg, but it’s a huge shortfall to recover."

Even with Social Security or other sources of income, most people are not going to be able to cover basic needs with such a small amount of money, she added.

While you would think the recession is to blame for the lack of savings -- making it harder for people to tuck away money in retirement plans -- Wells Fargo found that people saved roughly the same amount during the recession as they did before.

According to the survey, only 33% of Americans have a detailed written retirement plan and 37% don’t know how much the will need in retirement or how long they will be able to live on what they have saved.

Why is this horror story? It is because if it’s true most of us are in trouble or will be in trouble financially when we want to retire. In fact, according to this article, if it’s true, I don’t know how anybody could retire!

This is either a joke or else it’s very scary! It’s a joke in the sense of trying to save $300,000 for your retirement. I don’t know of anyone who could do that. There may be a few people out there who make enough money to save $300,000 but I don’t know who they are!

Most people don’t trust the economy or the way our country is heading economically and in many other ways!

I’ve heard people say things like, “I doubt that social security will even be there when I get old enough to draw from it.” I wonder as well.

But let me say, we all must learn to trust. Not the government. Not ourselves. Not our own ingenuity or smarts. Not Hollywood. But rather we must learn to trust the Lord. This trust business could well separate the men from the boys in life. It could well “make us or break us” spiritually and in other ways.

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Life doesn’t get much better than what this verse says to do. If we were to trust the Lord with our whole being instead of trying to do things by ourselves and if we would acknowledge the Lord in everything, LIFE WOULD BE BETTER. LIFE WOULD GET BETTER FOR US ALL!

PROP.- In this message, as we look to a new year,

let’s think about how to trust the Lord more in life.

1- Trust His provision

2- Trust His protection

3- Trust His promise

I. TRUST HIS PROVISION

ILL.- A little boy wanted $100 badly and prayed for two weeks but nothing happened. Then he decided to write a letter to the Lord requesting the $100. When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to the Lord, USA, they decided to send it to President.

The President was so impressed, touched, and amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5.00 bill, as this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy. The little boy was delighted with the $5 and sat down to write a thank you note to the Lord.

It read: Dear Lord, Thank you very much for sending me the money. However, I noticed that for some reason you had to send it through Washington, DC and as usual, those jerks deducted $95.

That sounds about right, doesn’t it? And since the economy is in such a bad shape here in America and seemingly, getting worse, we can’t help but think about our future financial situation. What must we do? What can we do?