The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Revelation 8:8
I can be a bit dramatic. As I was sitting in my recliner writing one morning recently, my dog began to make pre-vomiting sounds that I’ve come to know all too well. My recliner sits on the edge of a rug, which sits on a tile floor. For some reason, the dog came over, put his head over the rug – not the tile floor – and began to heave. This all happened fast enough that I just had time to push his head away from me, so he retched on the tile, not the rug. As the fluid in the vomit pool began to expand, I had to lift the edge of the rug to keep it out of the mess. I was stuck though – I couldn’t let go of the rug to get a rag. So, I got out of my recliner and tipped it to fold the rug, tucking it under the chair. In doing so, my chair tipped the coffee table next to it, spilling my giant cup of coffee on the very rug I was trying to protect. I said some bad words. Then I expressed something like this – This is the worst day ever. Why doesn’t anything ever go my way? Why is this happening to me?
You can laugh. It’s absurd. Not the dog, but me. I have a blessed life. I have a wonderful wife and healthy children. I have a fantastic job that I truly enjoy. I have a ridiculously comfortable existence, but there I was, ranting about how unfair and difficult my life was. Like I said, I was being absurd.
Some of us are prone to this. I’ve often heard Christians look at the world around them, saying something like this – Jesus must come back soon. I don’t see how things can get any worse. This, of course, is also absurd. People have been predicting the end for 2,000 years. In today’s passage, we read the prophecy of a fiery missile that will one day strike the ocean, wreaking havoc on the planet, killing a third of all living things in the sea. A few verses later, after more cataclysms, we’re told of the world’s despair. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them (Revelation 9:6). Things can always get worse – and one day, they absolutely will.
I don’t want to be one of those people who refuses to mourn any loss because someone always has it worse than I do. But I also must maintain some proper perspective. When I experience some minor inconvenience and I throw my hands up in despair like it’s the end of the world, I’m being dramatic and absurd. When I’m on the way to the gym and realize I’ve forgotten my shoes, or I spill coffee on my shirt on the way to work, it’s not the apocalypse. It’s just a nuisance that I shouldn’t allow to ruin my mood or my day. Daily, unless I want to be miserable, I must be thankful for all that God’s given me, not focusing on the inconveniences of life.