It’s not your imagination. Things are bad—as bad as you thought—and maybe worse. It might not be a surprise to hear me say it, but how about hearing it from the United Nations? Last week the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) released a stunning report. According to UNDRR, “between 350 and 500 medium- to large-scale disasters took place every year over the past two decades.” That’s a mind-boggling 5-times the disaster-rate of previous decades. And, they say, it’s getting worse.
Some of those disasters were naturally occurring, such as hurricanes and earthquakes. Others came as a result of what UNDRR calls “a broken perception of risk based on optimism, underestimation and invincibility.” Mami Mizutori, the Head of UNDRR, said, “By deliberately ignoring risk and failing to integrate it in decision making, the world is effectively bankrolling its own destruction.”
Optimism can be a good thing, but not when it blinds us to danger. When I hear the words “optimism, underestimation and invincibility,” I think of world leaders ignoring what God says, and naively going their own way. In their haughtiness, they disregard right and wrong. Convinced of their own brilliance, they assure the rest of us that everything will turn out okay. Meanwhile, they willingly risk long-term catastrophe for short-term gain.
It happens in almost every area of public life. Leaders repeatedly choose immediate political or monetary gain over what’s really best. We see it when politicians try to buy elections using deficit spending. We see it when businesses warehouse as little as possible, including food. This makes everyone vulnerable to even small supply chain disruptions. But it increases profits—at least in the short run.
The United States government is now releasing a million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The government hopes to appease angry voters by lowering the price of gasoline a few cents a gallon. Our leaders ignore the fact that in the present state of the world, the country might soon need every bit of that Reserve. It’s another case where they ignore long-term solutions in favor of quick and easy actions that turn out to be more symbolic than substantive.
There are too few Josephs among us—too few men and women with the vision to prepare nations in good times for difficulties ahead.
If you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, the best thing you can do is get word of His wondrous salvation to as many people as possible. Those who know Jesus need not live in fear, even when the world is “bankrolling its own destruction.” But we need to spread the good news with urgency.
As for you personally, remember Psalms 91:1. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” In his book, Till Armageddon, Billy Graham said it like this. “The will of God will never take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.”
