Six Hours Until Impact

Recently, an asteroid passed so close to Earth that it flew within the orbiting ring of existing satellites. According to NASA, the asteroid was only detected six hours before it arrived. While the asteroid was small, only ten feet across, it still raised concern that it was not be discovered until it was just a short distance away.

Life can change in a blink of an eye. Some will interpret that reality as a reason to always live in fear of the unknown. God wants something better for us. He wants us to interpret these events as a reminder that we should live in trust, not fear when undetected circumstances come our way at the last moment. Death, divorce, and disaster don’t always announce their arrival.

The only real preparation we can do for the undetected catastrophic events in life is the preparation of our heart. If the asteroid NASA failed to see was a huge one and it was able to slip past our best ability to detect its presence, we would have no time to prepare or escape. What would our lives look and sound like in the six hours until impact?

There will always be fear mongers both in the Church and without that want to sell you a message of fear as the primary motivator for how you should respond to the unforeseen events of life. To these dispensers of doom, everything of life is filtered through fear and distrust. If you don’t turn it off now when a real disaster comes, you will respond to the coming event with the dark elements of their sorrowful message.

If it were announced that an Earth-ending asteroid was inbound and we had no hope of escape, I would take Jan in my arms and tell her I loved her again for the 10 millionth time. Together we would spend our remaining hours thanking God for all the goodness He let us taste in this life as we waited to enter eternity together. The peace we would share at that moment be overwhelming. For some, the possibility of that kind of peace sounds incredibly naive and in some cases, insane. Such is a life of faith.

Never waste a catastrophic life-event on fear. Fear is a thief who wants to steal, rob and destroy your hope. Hope births peace and peace give us the ability to confront our greatest fear with a supernatural trust. Against these things, no catastrophic event of life can prosper.