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Here a few stats showing us some of the problems in the world.

• Current population of 7.8 billion people.
• 36,000,000 have died so far this year.
• There are 40-50 million estimated abortions per year.
• Almost 700,000 suicides so far this year.
• Almost 10 billion smoked cigarettes so far this year.
• $246 billion dollars spent on illegal drugs this year.
• About 600 natural disasters per year from 1980-2011.
• Just from 2000-2012, 1.2 million people were killed by natural disasters and 2.9 billion people affected.
• About 90,000,000 people were killed by war in the 20th century alone.

These stats are just the tip of the iceberg. If we look at the world around us, it can be a dreary place. Suffering and disasters are not only things we read in the news. They happen to us and people we know. Some look at this and conclude that life is meaningless, that chaos and randomness rule the day.

Once a newcomer to a Bible study I was leading told me he thought that God would be too busy to answer the prayers of millions of people around the globe. He thought God would be unable to keep up with everything going on in this world. He is not the only person who thinks this.

Shortly before his death, Mark Twain wrote,

“A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle;…they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; …those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It (the release) comes at last—the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them—and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence,…a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.”

Is Mark Twain wrong?

So what in the world is God doing? And what does He wants us to do? Read our article on God's vision for the nations to take a blazing fast journey through the Bible to figure out the answers to these questions.

Blessings, Jason from Study and Obey