"Is there no security in this world?"

The United States and Europe, to a lesser extent, are having to deal with the uncertainty that much of the world has always lived with. Although Columbia, Tenn. is still safe enough that some people don’t lock their doors and the police force seriously enforces the speed limit (they don’t have much else to do) our lives are becoming more uncertain.

Dana and I arrived at the airport 3 hours early and were inside the secured air within 10 minutes--of course if we had waited an hour it probably would have taken us 1 ½ hours. But the very fact that you cannot bring any kind of liquid or gel on board an airplane emphasizes the uncertainty of our times. In times past you boarded a plane without much thought of whether you would arrive alive—your only concern was if it would be on time. In contrast, people pray before they set out on a car trip in Dominica. And this insecurity of “what if”—even local festivals like the World Chicken Festival (London, KY) or Mule Days (Columbia, TN) or Bonaroo (Manchester, TN) are at least theoretically possible terrorism targets. Not to mention the weather is more extreme (no, it’s not global warming, just a new cycle) so agricultural output is more uncertain. The workplace is not much better—gone are the days of working for only one company all your working life. “They” say the average worker will change jobs 5-6 times before they retire.

All of this uncertainty in our everyday lives highlights the lack of control that mankind has over our lives. The government is unable to eliminate or even prevent terrorism. For all our scientific knowledge we still cannot control, or even modify the weather. Great advances have been made in medicine but people still die.

But even when everything around us is uncertain, there is still one constant—God. As the Psalmist reminds us, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psa. 27:1) Or as Romans 8:31-32 says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” As children of the most High God not only can we count on Him to provide for our needs, but when this life is over, whether sooner or later, ample entrance will be provided into that which the ASV translates “life indeed”.

Tol