Impending Disaster

With New Orleans partially submerged by just the edge of Katrina, word comes that five years ago city officials had been discussing building a wall around the city 25 feet high. But, alas, it was never done. The result of the decision to do nothing is the devastation we are seeing on the news.

So often, it seems, we human beings face impending disaster with a shrug, or with a wishful thought that the bad thing will not happen, or that we will somehow be spared in the midst of it. With trouble clearly ahead, we dither instead of decide, we choose inaction over action, we punt instead of plan.

Which brings to mind the all-important question: What other clearly foreseen dangers are we choosing to ignore? While this list is by no means exhaustive, here are a few:

– terrorists coming over our borders with compact weapons of mass destruction;

– hijackings or other attacks on our aviation industry by members of ethnic or religious groups that we politely refuse to “profile”;

– attacks on our lightly defended nuclear and chemical plants.

Of course, dangers from the weather or our fellow man are not the only things we choose to ignore. These events are more or less statistically probable. There is one fate that we all face with 100 percent certainty: death. What are we doing to prepare for that?

About Stan Guthrie

Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His latest book is God's Story in 66 Verses. He also is author of All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, and A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy. He is co-author of The Sacrament of Evangelism. Besides authoring, writing, and editing books, Stan is a literary agent, bringing together good authors, good books, and good publishers. Stan writes the monthly Priorities colum for BreakPoint.org. He has appeared on National Public Radio's €œTell Me More,€ WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including The Eric Metaxas Show and Moody Radio'€™s €œNew Day Florida.€ A licensed minister and an inspirational speaker, he served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?
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