As the year 1999 wound down to its final days, observers around the world kept a weather eye on air traffic, the stock markets, in fact everything governed by electronics. Would the millennium bug strike and grind the world to a halt? Thankfully, it did not.

Yet 12 months later, we as a world realize that we simply did not have a good year. Good years and bad years regulate the salaries of American baseball players. Two or three bad ones in succession spell a salary cut, or worse yet being sent down to the minor leagues. Once Babe Ruth was asked why he made more money than the U.S. president. "I had a better year than he did," quipped the legendary baseball star.

Be that as it may, 365 days down the line the year 2000 must be judged a disappointment. Not only here in Britain (where this writer resides), but also in many other nations around the world.

It's been a period of frustrating and expensive rail and road gridlock for parts of England, Scotland and Wales. Rail transport experienced its worst year in living memory. Frightening accidents revealed serious structural problems in the nation's trackbed. Road transport was hit by a massive protest over skyrocketing fuel prices.

Abroad the year 2000 has brought us a whole range of dispiriting images: the lingering uncertainty of the U.S. presidential election, the Mideast peace process at least temporarily in tatters, Haider's rising presence in Austria, mayhem in Zimbabwe, even a threat to democracy in fabled Fiji. All this is not to mention other cumulative problems that plague the world year by year.

Evaluating a world of chaos

As one American columnist put it: "World 2000 is a misshapen creation demographically, economically, culturally." Planet earth now has to feed over 6 billion people. Some 800 million of us suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition. We probably have enough food to feed the world, but politics and greed prevent us from proper distribution.

Part of the basic problem is that we always seem to be living on the edge of chaos. Periodic threats like the millennium bug emerge out of our global woodwork. Much of our daily lives revolve around computers, mobile phones and the like. The more complex our world becomes, the greater the uncertainty. When things go wrong, like a computer virus or a minor glitch in the stock market, it can set off a damaging chain reaction. The markets are all connected.

Usually when a problem occurs we know about it. Thanks to 24-hour news coverage, e-mail messages, the Internet and mobile phones, we are able to react instantly. The CEO is almost never out of touch with the head office, whatever the location.

Yet sometimes when you try to fix a difficulty, two or three other problems suddenly emerge unexpectedly. Minor hiccups quickly turn into major problems. This is the complex world we live in.

Today we lurch from crisis to crisis. One problem fosters another and the potential for global meltdown is always there. We live in an age of perpetual uncertainty. No wonder our medicine cabinets are filled with drugs.

Bringing order out of chaos

Of course, some degree of order and stability is constantly correcting and counteracting the changing levels of chaos. The Bible reveals that human beings were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Though Satan had struck at God's original creation, resulting in massive chaos, God restored light and order to an earth of perpetual darkness. (For details please request our booklet, Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?)

Given the wondrous legacy of the image of God, we also know how to restore order and restrain chaos. It is built into our genetic structure. The Scriptures tell us that "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Corinthians 14:33), and the Church is told to do all things decently and in order (verse 40).

The ratio of order to disorder is always a matter of degree. To fulfill His great purpose for human life, God has temporarily allowed a surprising amount of chaos to stalk this earth. Scientists tell us it even exists in the universe itself. Yet Halley's Comet arrives right on time, and general stability still outweighs and rules over outbreaks of chaos.

An unseen influence

Satan is the prince of the power of the air-the unseen ruler of this present world. In due time he will be deposed and the restitution of God's government will soon follow.

But for the time being, the devil influences humans to produce all types of chaos, not only in the world at large but in personal lives as well. For instance, members of warring, dysfunctional families attack one another in front of mass audiences on TV shows, both verbally and physically. Their lives are in chaos. It is very likely that their numbers will grow.

Yet God is the ultimate Sovereign over both heaven and earth (Matthew 11:25). He inspired one of His true servants, the apostle Paul, to write: "The whole created world is waiting with eager expectation for the Sons of God to be revealed.... The created world itself would be freed from its enslavement to decay and receive the glorious freedom which belongs to the Children of God" (Romans 8:19, 21).

This means that the Creator is masterminding and fashioning something incredibly worthwhile out of the chaotic behavior of mankind. God promises to bring us a peaceful and prosperous new world order, ending all the present chaos (Acts 3:19-21). God knows what this present age is like. Jesus told His disciples that "in the world you will have tribulation" (John 16:33).

Romans 8—a big key

Few chapters in the Bible explain the human condition better than Romans 8. Read verse 22 with the chaos of our current age firmly in mind: "For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now." How much more now than when Paul wrote these words almost 2,000 years ago!

A new world is being formed out of this one. The Jerusalem Bible grasps the sense of verse 22: "From the beginning till now the entire creation, as we know it, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth."

Metaphorically, civilization is experiencing the pangs of childbirth. Ultimately, God will liberate planet earth from every disaster, every act of irrational violence, every contrary force that now harms and holds humanity hostage.

However, for the present time the twists and turns of our torturous, chaotic age affect even those who truly understand God's purpose, those doing their level best to get this gospel message to the world. God's people are not immune from the stresses and strains of this deceptive society.

The J.B. Phillips Modern English translation expresses this point very well. "It is plain for anyone with eyes to see that at the present time all created life groans in a sort of universal travail. And it is plain, too, that we who have a foretaste of the spirit are in a state of painful tension" (verses 22-23).

Yet these brave souls continue to preach and publish the gospel. Seeing the world around them struggling for survival, they are moved to do something truly helpful.

There is nothing more urgent than actively helping humankind survive the world crisis that is coming on this entire globe.

The year 2001 may be a good year-or it may be a bad one. It's the general direction that really counts. Certainly the potential for a major meltdown is always with us. Constantly we need to maintain a balanced biblical perspective. God has assured His people that everything is going to turn out all right at the end of the day (Luke 21:28). WNP