Bedtime stories of old had a short roster of often-repeated tales designed to transfer little minds from vertical troublemaking to horizontal recharging. Some worked; many didn’t. One recurrent story – dripping with wisdom – was “The Boy Who Cried, ‘Wolf.’” Remember that one?

The lesson shadow cast by the story was clear: you might be able to mislead folks for a couple of rounds, but eventually they’ll figure out your game and disregard your purported pronouncements and write you off in the future.

We should be reaching that status with the incessant intrusions that attempt to grab our focus and derail our consciousness. Often, they come under the promise of “Breaking News,” which is often a bogus declaration that is obviously subjective.

Example: based on a study by Change Consulting, LLC, the top headlines in the American press thus far in 2024 have been grouped under the following banner bombshells: – Foreign Policy; – War; – 2024 Elections, democracy and government dysfunction; – Economy & inflation; – Housing & homelessness; – Climate Crisis; – Labor union strikes & fair wages; – Gun violence & gun control; – Abortion & reproductive justice; – Immigration reform; – Travel & consumer trends.

Scan that list one more time. What I see are a series of regrettable realities of life in a fallen world. If you could book 12 months on the International Space Station with a scheduled return in October of 2025, the same roster of regrets would probably be the hot list of headlines from next year. 

What’s missing from the hot list?

If you could ask Future You that question – not the coming-back-from-space you, but the two steps past the threshold that separates earth life from afterlife, who will be smarter than you ever were while you were still breathing.

Let me highlight the biggest realities that will still be compelling upon your graduation into Eternity. Four biggies that didn’t make Change Consulting survey but loom over the lunacy of life, here in the fog.

The really, really big stuff that dwarfs the rest: – Sin; – Death; – Hell; – Redemption.

Sin: in an age that wants to deny or debate God’s eternal reality, “sin” is the inescapable truth that every last one of us is out-of-touch with the Holy God who created us, and suffering from a condition that we cannot resolve on our own. 

Death: all of the happy-talk and Botox in the world cannot dispel the looming certainty that we’re all living on borrowed time. We came shipped with an expiration date, and each day is one day closer to our closing bell.

Hell: apart from a solution coming from outside our mortal realities, no magic will redirect our human eventuality. Unless something dramatic happens to change our life course, we will each find ourselves in eternal darkness and faced with a sentence that offers no appeal or parole.

Redemption: the most astounding “Breaking News” ever disclosed to convicted humans is the breakthrough offered through the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, who came to Earth from Heaven to intervene with the astounding offer extended from God to each of us. 

That headline was as astounding to Abraham 4000 years ago as it is to us today. 

I know you know this, but neither party in the coming election can offer solutions for Change Consulting breaking news or for the epic calamity that we all “own,” unless we respond to the rescue message that’s come from the Almighty.

Whom do you know who has not heard those four breakthrough hot-takes that have changed your life and given you hope for the future?