Have you ever put your heart and soul into working at something... only to have it come to nothing? Maybe a gourmet meal where you added too much salt right at the end? Perhaps you repainted a room, only to have the paint peel, or to decide that you hated the new colour? Or perhaps you scorched a hole in a treasured craft with an iron?
Most of us have experienced it sometime - a totally wasted effort. Discouraging, isn't it? In reality, all our physical efforts will eventually come to nothing. One day, we'll die and then rot in the ground and all our physical accomplishments will rot or collapse or fade with us. Perhaps not right away, but eventually. So what is it all for?
In Isaiah 26 in the Bible, God compares all our efforts to better the world to a woman having "birth pangs" and then, instead of giving birth to a baby... breaking wind. Just imagine thinking you're pregnant for nine months, and then, after a long and difficult labour, letting forth nothing but a massive fart. What a horrible disappointment!
Even the Vatican has suggested a solution to the world's financial woes. Governments, charity organizations, social reformers - you name it - are scrambling to fix everything from wage disputes to climate change. Their efforts are huge, but the end result will be no more than a really bad smell.
There is a simple (but very unpopular) cure to this kind of flatulence. It's doing things God's way. But, as the Bible predicts, it's going to take the total collapse of all that we hold dear before humanity will accept God's way of doing things.
We have the chance to do something that will have a lasting effect - if we invest in something beyond the physical. Will we choose to leave behind something more than a bad smell?
To hear more about how current events relate to prophecy and how we should be living, check out the new Beyond Today Daily.
