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Questions, questions—everybody’s asking questions. I heard recently that there are two questions Americans ask more than any other. Could you guess what they are? One is, "Where can I park my car?" The other is, "How can I lose weight?" I doubt you were surprised at either of those.

Not so long ago people’s questions were different. They were more on the order of, "Where can I find enough to eat?" and "How can I stay alive past 40?" That is, they were questions of survival. Questions we ask, by contrast, are prompted by our luxury.

A family in the midwestern U.S. was looking for a new house. A friend asked what they were looking for. They finally agreed what they really needed was a one-room house with a three-car garage and a five-story attic. That’s not as unreal as it may sound. They have two cars, some bicycles, a motor bike and a snowmobile. They have such a busy family schedule that no one is ever home much. And yet they have accumulated mountains of things over the years, most of them carefully stored away. So, a one-room house, a three-car garage and a five-story attic was exactly what they needed.

We Americans—and many of you in other countries who are listening to this broadcast—can afford things today that were unheard of a generation back. And usually we have our pick of 15 models and 20 color combinations. In spite of all the gloom—energy problems, national conflicts, financial uncertainty—most of us are pretty well off.

Some of the thoughtful ones among us, however, are asking questions. Why is it that, in spite of this growing prosperity, we still have so much crime? Especially white-collar crime . . . things like embezzlement and fraud? Why does the drug rate among our youth continue to be a problem? How can that be?

Could our prosperity be robbing us? Could it be taking away the important things and replacing them with shiny, empty substitutes? I believe that’s exactly what’s happening.

That means it’s up to each one of us to decide our own course. We must find something or somebody to call us upward, to call us to live on a higher plane. There are, you know, questions more significant than, "Where can I park my car?"

Do you have a Bible? If you do, pick it up and read the book of Mark. Mark tells about Jesus Christ who had answers to the real questions, the tough questions. Questions of life, death, a purpose for living, the way to face suffering and tragedy, strength to press on even when people don’t understand. These are the real questions, and for these we need solid, enduring answers. Don’t waste your life on things that don’t matter anyway. Check out who Jesus was and what he said. It’s there in the Bible. Read it.

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How would you feel if you knew something was right, but for years nobody else believed you, and now suddenly the whole world finds out you’re right? You’d feel pretty great, wouldn’t you? It was all a big mystery for a while, but now all those doubters would have to admit you’d been right.

Something like that may have started to happen in Turkey just last month. 12 miles off the coast of Turkey some professional divers spotted what appears to be the remains of a long-lost civilization. "There’s no doubt about it, it’s an exciting discovery," said Robert Ballard, a National Geographic Society explorer and the head of the diving expedition. 300 feet below the surface of the Black Sea they have found remains of a house or some other building, along with a stone chisel and other tools. Tentatively they believe the village was there 7,000 years ago.

The question is, what happened? How did a normal everyday village suddenly come to be under 300 ft. of water? Ah, here’s where the mystery comes in. The Bible and the histories of many ancient civilizations talk about a flood that came suddenly and covered whole cities. The book of Genesis in the Old Testament tells about the flood and about a good man, Noah, whom God told to build a great ship, or ark, to escape the flood. Could this civilization, lying at the bottom of the Black Sea, be one of the cities covered by the flood?

Well, of course, we probably won’t ever know for sure. But it is exciting, isn’t it, to think that maybe all those people who have believed in a great flood thousands of years ago were right after all? When it comes to something we’ve believed in, it’s nice when others join us in our beliefs—but, of course, often that doesn’t happen. When you think about it, when it comes to faith in God, we have to do that alone. Nobody can believe for us.

Faith, you see, is not just a matter of flipping a coin and deciding, "Heads I believe in God, tails I don’t." Faith comes as the result of evidence told by a credible witness. I’ve never seen the Taj Mahal in India, but I have faith that it’s there because people I believe have seen it and told me it’s there. You can’t separate the credible witness and the evidence – one backs up the other. So when the Bible tells me that thousands of years ago there was a flood that buried entire cities, I believe it. Because I’ve found the Bible to be true in many, many other ways.

Will that civilization at the bottom of the Black Sea prove there was a flood? Maybe, maybe not. In the end I will believe there was a flood not because of the work of the National Geographic Society diving team, but because a trustworthy Bible has said so. That’s good enough for me.

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Have you ever been in an airline terminal? It’s an exciting place! People rushing here and there, planes coming and going, children excited about their first airplane ride, parents trying to keep up with all the luggage as well as their children, businessmen dashing to make up for time. Eventually everyone gets on the plane, seatbelts are fastened, and the plane starts down the runway.

That’s the way it happened at Taipei’s airport a few weeks ago. Typical preparations for a flight. The rain was coming down hard, but that’s not unusual for that part of the world. They started down the runway, picked up speed – but then something happened. The captain said, "We hit something!" All of a sudden that flight—that began so well—turned into a nightmare as the plane crashed and broke up. Fire was everywhere. People were screaming. Panic broke out. Of the 179 people on board, 82 died in that inferno. It was horrible!

What happened? First news reports were confusing, but now the truth has come out: the captain was trying to take off from the wrong runway. The runway he picked by accident was being repaired and remodeled, so it was covered with construction equipment. With the cover of darkness and the driving rain, the captain became confused and thought the construction lights were runway lights. As a result, dozens of people died.

When I read that sad account I couldn’t help thinking that it sounded familiar. I’ve met many people in my life who thought they were taking off, but in reality they were going down the wrong runway to destruction. Oh, there were lights that seemed inviting, and when they started out they seemed to be making good time. But then something happened – something tragic. And soon they realized they were in serious trouble.

There are the obvious wrong paths, of course: drugs, alcohol abuse, crime. We wonder how people could be so misled.

But with other brightly-lit runways it’s harder to detect the real from the fake. Just to take one example: everybody agrees it’s a great thing to have a job—something to provide income to take care of our families. But what happens when the job becomes more important than the family? Or when the job requires that somebody lie or cheat or step on other people to get ahead? Many obstacles on that road, and before long we may come apart.

You see, there are lots of wrong runways, and some of them look so enticing. But somewhere down the road something goes wrong. And sadly it’s often too late to keep from hurting yourself and the people around you.

The key is to start out on the right runway from the beginning. Long ago Jesus Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Oh yes, that’s it! Following Jesus Christ the road is clean and the direction is clear. Now of course that’s not to say there may not be some bumps along the way! But at least you’re on the correct runway! Unless you start right, there’s no way you’ll end up where you want to go!

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It was one of those moments that live for decades in history books. The place was Vietnam in the city of Hanoi. The audience was a group of students. And the speaker was the President of the United States, Bill Clinton. When Clinton’s plane touched down in Hanoi last month he became the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the bloody war back in the 1960’s and 70’s. But his visit was more than that. It was the statement of a healing principle that reaches back into the dawn of time.

What Americans call the Vietnam War was disastrous for the people of Vietnam and bitterly divisive for the American people. It cost the lives of 58,000 Americans and nearly 3 million Vietnamese. Since that time the two countries have come together in many ways – they have reestablished normal diplomatic relations and signed a trade pact. To walk around the cities of Vietnam you get the feeling that the Americans had been the heroes, not the enemies: everywhere people are listening to American pop music and drinking American drinks. Some of their people work for American companies and make big money doing so.

But even so, the differences between the two countries remain. And the memories of a bloody, drawn-out war remain, also. This is where Clinton’s visit becomes important. To the college students in Hanoi, Clinton said, "We cannot change the past." And that is true. Nobody can undo that history. But, Clinton went on to say, "What we can change is the future."

Those words were heard around the world. And so they should have been. He didn’t say, "I’m sorry," or "We made a mistake in coming here to kill 3 million of your people." But the very fact that he came in peace, and the fact that the Vietnamese people received him warmly throughout his stay, says that the world doesn’t have to be chained to the past. And the people of Vietnam got the message: they mobbed the President and his wife and daughter everywhere they went. They would call out "Hey Bill! Hey Bill!" as the president walked by.

This is good news for America and Vietnam. Human lives are precious, and when millions are killed for political reasons, this is always a tragedy. But also, this is good news for the whole world. What nation hasn’t done things it’s now ashamed of? What city or town hasn’t made decisions that its citizens later decided were poor decisions? And which of us, you and me, can say we’ve never hurt anybody, never let anybody down, never failed to live up to what we know?

In other words, there’s lots of blame to go around. Whether we see it in countries, or we see it when we look in the mirror, yes, there’s lots of blame to go around. So what’s the answer? For countries, what Bill Clinton did was a place to begin. For individuals, however, that’s a little different. Jesus Christ said it takes forgiveness. That’s tough. But it’s the only way.

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Take, for example, Naaman. Naaman was a general in the Syrian army 2800 years ago. His story is told in the book of II Kings in the Bible. Naaman, like John Kennedy, Jr., had it all. He was smart, courageous, shrewd, with a great reputation as a brilliant military leader. He had only one problem: a serious skin disease. How he suffered with this disease! What a tragedy – this great man crippled by this kind of illness.

But one day, one day, a servant girl who worked for Naaman’s wife just happened to mention, "It’s too bad Naaman can’t go see the prophet of God in Israel – he could heal him!" Word of this reached the king, and the king told Naaman, "Go! Go to Israel, find that prophet, and maybe he’ll heal you!"

So, Naaman went. But when he arrived at the home of Elisha the prophet, was he ever in for a surprise! Elisha sent a servant out to Naaman’s chariot and told him what to do: "Go down to the Jordan River. Dip yourself 7 times into the Jordan and when you come up the 7^th time your skin disease will be healed." Oh – Naaman was furious! "This prophet didn’t even come out of his house to meet me – and I’m a very important man! And now he wants me to go down to that dirty, grubby, Jordan River? No way!" Naaman was angry. He got into his chariot and drove away in a rage.

But the story isn’t over. As Naaman was headed back toward Syria, one of his servants caught up with him. "Sir," he said, "if the prophet had told you to do some great thing (build a monument or something), you would have done it, wouldn’t you? This is such a little thing – why don’t you just do it?" Naaman finally said, "OK, you’re right." So he went to the Jordan, dipped in it 7 times, and suddenly his skin became as smooth as that of a little boy. Naaman was miraculously healed by God.

Who were the heroes in the story? The famous general? The godly prophet? No, the heroes of the story were the servants! At the first of the story it was a servant girl who told Naaman’s wife about the prophet of God. And at the end of the story it was the servants who convinced Naaman to forget his anger and just do what Elisha told him to do. It was the servants who really made this story happen.

This just reminds us that God’s help in our lives often comes from very unexpected sources. It may sneak up on us and surprise us. That’s the reason we always need to be listening for the voice of God. Help is not usually going to come from the rich and famous. It’s going to come from the quiet moments we spend with God. Are you listening?

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Ever been to the Philippines? Not many people have, but many know it’s a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Tropical, beautiful, lush vegetation – it would be like the "promised land" to millions around the world.

But one day last year this beautiful place turned into a nightmare. One section of the capital city, Manila, has a huge housing area at the foot of a large hill called, in English, the "Promised Land." That hill is, in reality, an enormous city dump. But the hundreds of people who live just below it rarely thought about that until last July 10.

Summer is the time for the monsoon rains and typhoons that the Philippine people are used to. But this time it was different. All that rain softened the ground of that hill of garbage, and the whole mountain suddenly came as an avalanche on top of the little community of people. More than 220 people died in the trash and mud landslide. 475 families lost their homes. It was horrible. Rescuers tried for days to make their way through the filth and the garbage to reach their loved ones, but finally they had to give up.

Immediately Christians nearby sprang into action. A temporary orphanage was set up for children whose parents had died. Supplies of food, soap, and clothing were collected and rushed to the scene. Feeding stations and schools were set up. Medical supplies were brought in and administered. Almost immediately, responsible people realized that this would not be a short-time crisis, but an ongoing situation that would have to be monitored for years. That’s good.

But what I keep thinking about is the tragedy of all those people—whole families in many cases—being buried under tons of garbage. That would seem to be the worst fate of all. Other disasters like rock slides, earthquakes, fires—none of these seem quite the same as being buried under a mountain of garbage.

Maybe the reason I’m so tuned in to that is that I see the same sort of thing happening every day right around where I live. No, not with mudslides, but with a different kind of garbage. Garbage that fills the mind and the heart. Harmful ideas, stinking moral decisions, rotten influences from people whose lives are filled with all that is profane and twisted, rough language and profanity from those whose lives are obviously in decay—and all these things come cascading down on us every day.

The difference is, we have a choice. We can let all this destructive stuff bury us, or we can, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, find that road that leads us out of danger and into His presence. I don’t want to get buried by all the "stuff." Thank you, Jesus, for creating a better way!

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