"An Unstable World"

Henry Thoreau said that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." By this, he meant that most people resign themselves to life as it comes to them, coping and preparing as best as they can, but always feeling that it would take very little for everything in their lives to crumble.

Born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are not exempt from this sense of frustration and doom. We live in an unstable world that continually moves under our feet. The path of tomorrow will be different than today, even if we have done much to prepare ourselves for life's contingencies. Earthly security is actually an impossibility, and our Lord Himself is the mover and shaker of the world's constant state of flux.

"The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the world passeth away" (I John 2:17; Psalm 29:8).

No amount of money, possession, health, or hoarding nuts for the winter, as it were, can stablize the ground of a fallen world when God commands it to shake under our feet. He does so in order to remind us that He alone is our rock and strong tower, and that He alone can lead us to still waters. "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). This understanding and determination is our only hope for stability. One day He will will still the earth - "Fear before Him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved" - but this is not that day, or that lifetime (I Chronicles 16:30). For now, believing the truth that the living and doctrinal knowledge of God is the sole stillness available to us will set our feet on the way of peace even as the way of the world quivers and quakes underneath us.

"He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

(Luke 12:16-21)