What on Earth is Happening? - Why Bother?

There’s no doubt about it, we live in a time of great turbulence and anxiety. Disturbing events and images flood the media every day. If we had forgotten that fact, the recent earthquake in Haiti quickly brought us a painful reminder. Suddenly our attention was pulled to a trouble spot hundreds of miles away. Closer to home we find our own cities and states dealing with crises we could never have imagined 30 or 40 years ago.

Man is concerned about his existence and his future in ways that are without precedence. “What on Earth Am I Here For?” is the title of the opening section of Rick Warren’s record-breaking book (over 30 million hardcover copies sold!), The Purpose Driven Life. The movie 2012, just released in November 2009 is already #34 on the all-time gross receipts list. Nostradamus’ book, The Prophecies, has seldom been out of print since it was first published in 1555.

There’s no question, people are interested in their origin and their destiny, and these interests are peaked in times of uncertainty. This is human nature and it is aptly described in “The Manufacturer’s Handbook,” commonly called the Bible. Right after a series of verses which make up the song Turn, Turn by the Byrds, we read in Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Man innately knows that there is more to life than just the temporal, but he cannot find out what it is by natural pursuit. Only the eternal God can reveal the eternal.


This is said, not to provoke the reader to anger or even debate; only that this writer will be examining our topic through three different lenses. Author Joel Rosenberg states in his book, Epicenter, “While it is fashionable in our times to analyze world events merely by looking through the lenses of politics and economics, it is also a serious mistake, for it prevents one from being able to see in three dimensions. To truly understand the significance of global events and trends, one must analyze them through a third lens as well: the lens of Scripture. Only then can the full picture become clearer.”