Passing Fancies

Many have observed the rapidity at which our world changes.  Fads come and go; nations rise and fall, technological revolutions continue to transform our society.  Probably nothing can better illustrate this phenomenon than the meteoric rise and dramatic decline of Blockbuster Video stores.

In 1989, a new Blockbuster store was opening in the U.S. every 17 hours.  The future could not have been rosier.  Founded in 1985, Blockbuster’s mushrooming growth reached a peak in 2004 of 9,000 stores.  Today, just eleven short years later, you can’t go to a Blockbuster store to rent a DVD.  The chain filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and officially became defunct last year.

As such, Blockbuster becomes a metaphor for the transitory nature of this present world.  The lifecycle may exceed the thirty years of Blockbuster, but human innovation and ambition divorced from God will all fail in the end.

The Old Testament quotes the Creator as declaring, “I am the Lord, I do not change.”  Any worldview that ignores the reality of creatures’ accountability to their Maker, whose eternal laws of justice and morality govern the universe, will ultimately be dashed upon the rocks of despair and destruction.

It is easy to be driven with earthly concerns which will lose their significance a moment after death, even as the novelty of driving to the neighborhood video store to rent a DVD has been superseded by more efficient means of accomplishing the same end.

Wise people anchor their lives in the unchanging truth of the Lord of the universe.   He will never become passé; His Word will never be rendered obsolete.  He can give your life significance that will transcend even the devastation of death.  Ecclesiastes ends with these words, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil.”