Reading this morning's Wall Street Journal, we find reasons to delete this essay and reasons to keep reading. Let's get the delete key temptations out of the way first. It appears that more and more Americans are falling behind on mortgage payments, leading major banks and Wall Street firms to unload bad housing loans. No word yet as to whether this trend portends further declines in housing markets and personal savings.

Meanwhile, DaimlerChrysler AG announced yesterday that it may spin off its ailing Chrysler arm. 13,000 jobs will be lost, one auto-assembly plant will be closed, and three to six of the 32 Chrysler models will be eliminated.

If you're still reading, you deserve some good news: the Dow Jones Industrial Average easily beat the previous record close. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that he is comfortable with current interest-rate levels, and stocks cheered.

And scientists say they have captured an image of the AIDS virus as it attacks an immune cell. Their pictures pinpoint a place on the outside of the virus which could be vulnerable to antibodies blocking it from infecting human cells. The study may reveal HIV's long-sought "site of vulnerability" which could be targeted with a vaccine

The collective news of the day points up one common fact: our inability to control our future. Stocks can be up at the same time that we can't pay our mortgages. Despite all our technological advances, we cannot yet prevent terminal diseases from attacking our cells or our car companies. Uncertainty is the one certainty in this fallen world.

Consider an analogy. Who goes to the local airport just to hang out? To shop in the stores or eat in the restaurants? For most of us, airports are a necessary means to arriving at our "final destination" (I wish they wouldn't call it that when the airplane is up in the air). But what if you were born in an airport and spent your entire life there? You'd think that it was all there is. When passengers walked down the jet way and boarded airplanes which left your sight, you'd think they were gone forever. You wouldn't know that this is the dot before the line, the means to a larger end. But it is. And one day all who trust Christ as their Lord will leave earth for heaven and bad news for a land where the news is only good.

So let's live today for eternity. Let's do on earth what God rewards in heaven. Where will you start this morning?

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