One of the uncomfortable things about God is the hard things he lets happen to us.

Hard things can happen to us personally: the memory of his deep love for me during a nervous breakdown in my twenties has given me real strength to see opportunity on the other side of my current redundancy from Fairfax.

As some Pentecostal brothers and sisters taught me once: "God is a God who brings blessing out of a curse".

Or it can happen to a group of churches: Sydney Diocese, to quote this paper, has "sustained significant losses" in the global financial crisis.

This is not good news for people who will lose their jobs, as an average 50 percent budget cut impacts diocesan ministries (although the impact may be uneven).

For the last six months our diocese HQ has been in crisis as the impact of the losses, which occurred in October, has slowly filtered through to the diocese's various organisations.

In general, this loss is far greater than the share market fall during the crisis. And my own research suggests our loss is much worse than other Anglican dioceses around the world " magnified by borrowings which had given us good results in previous years.

Just as this pewsitter rejoiced with the energy unleashed by the Diocesan Mission, he now must mourn with those who will be devastated by the budget cuts.

"Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?"

There is real anguish in the diocesan leadership at having presided over such a disaster. There is no remedy in sight, and the injury to the Sydney Anglican finances will persist for another generation.

This big financial loss will make us into a different bunch of Christians, and possibly a better one. One sin we are often accused of by other Christian groups is complacency. Well, that's been fixed.

Any satisfaction we have had of being financially secure, and able to be looked after by the blokes in town? Well, forget that.

Sydney triumphalism? So very 2008.

Am I the only one who thinks this might be good for us? These circumstances are salutary. It leaves us to pray as if only God can save us.

God gave the children of Israel a deliberately marginal land to live in according to the (not-very-evangelical-but-he-got-this-bit-right) Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann. It was delicately placed between two superpowers who always threatened to wipe it out, Egypt and Babylon/Persia. And as the power dynamic shifted over time, the temptation to "trust in Egypt" was ever present. Nearly always a tiny nation, Israel needed to trust God to prosper.

We now have the same challenge.