Have you heard about the Doomsday Clock? Just the words alone seems like something from a 1950’s sci-fi film- shadowy black and white images featuring a wild-eyed, white coat, hair standing-on-end mad scientist out to destroy the world.

The Doomsday Clock is a real concept. It is representation of the perils we must address if we are to survive on this planet. The clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as a globally recognized indicator of the vulnerability of our existence. It is a design that “warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.”

A group of scientists, consisting of 12 Nobel laureates look at the problems of the world and apply the end of the world (midnight) time frame. In the past the greatest danger to humanity came from nuclear weapons. Originally the clock was “set” at seven minutes to midnight. (Interestingly, according the Bulletin website, that time frame was picked because the designer of the clock thought that hand design looked good.) Since 2007 the Bulletin has considered catastrophic disruptions from climate change in its hand-setting deliberations and have moved the hands accordingly. It has been moved to two minutes to midnight in the past but this is the first time that clock has been described in seconds.

Upsetting to say the least.

Are we running out of time? What do we do? Panic? Hide under our beds? Party?

But then on the same day as hearing about the Doomsday Clock, I heard a Storycorp interview between a NASA engineer (Jefferson) and his kindergarten-aged nephew (Jerry). Both share a love and passion for space. What struck me was the optimism in the future, especially for this up and coming astrophysicist/rocket scientist. Below is part of their conversation in which Jerry hopes to travel and possibly live on another planet/star:

"You're learning so much by yourself, too, that you're teaching me as well," Jefferson said. "And that's really cool. The more you learn, the more we realize the little things in life we take for granted are the very things that make life possible. So when I look up in the stars, I think about that."

His hope for Jerry is that he will do and continue to learn about the things that he loves most. "You can do whatever you want, but in the future, I think you're going to go to Kepler-452b."

A couple of days later I heard the obituary of Jim Lehrer, the anchorman for PBS for over thirty years. In addition to being the quintessential newsman, he was also a prolific writer. According to the obituary on the NPR website:

Mr. Lehrer’s memoirs were “We Were Dreamers” (1975), “A Bus of My Own” (1992) and “Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates” (2011). His plays were “Chili Queen” (1986), a farce about a media circus at a hostage situation; “Church Key Charlie Blue” (1988), a dark comedy on a bar flare-up over a televised football game; “The Will and Bart Show” (1992), about two cabinet officials who loathe each other; and “Bell” (2013), a one-man show about Alexander Graham Bell.

Writing nights and weekends, on trains, planes and sometimes in the office, Mr. Lehrer churned out a novel almost every year for more than two decades: spy thrillers, political satires, murder mysteries and series featuring One-Eyed Mack, a lieutenant governor of Oklahoma, and Charlie Henderson, a C.I.A. agent. “Top Down” (2013) revolved around the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which Mr. Lehrer had covered as a young reporter in Dallas. Critics called his fiction workmanlike, relying more on twisty plots than characters and dialogue.

In 1992, Terry Gross asked him how he found the time to do all of this. It was concentration, he said. In another interview he said the following, “But you can't waste a lot of time worrying if the wind is right, how do you feel? You know, I have said I could write underwater at 5 in the morning hungover, hanging by my thumbs.

He became more focused following a heart attack in the 1980s. As he told Terry Gross, “It isn't this thing of oh, my - looking back on my life. I looked ahead. And well, how much time I had left, whether it's five days, five months, five years, 25 years, I wanted to do these things.”

It has gotten me thinking- what if the Doomsday Clock is accurate? That life is short. After all we really do not need a special clock to realize that. Spend anytime with anyone and you will see how fragile life is: illness, premature death, disability, heartache, broken relationships. The Doomsday Clock calls each of us to action, both societally and also personally. There are things that we should and need to do societally so that we do not prematurely end our human existence or at least to maintain it so that our children and grandchildren can enjoy the planet. So that the Jerry’s of this world can continue their quests of discovery.

But, there is an individual responsibility to not waste time about our purpose in life. What God has called one to do, one needs to do it. Sometimes that is hard to find what the purpose may be. I do think that sometimes we are called to temporary purposes- Like Esther and her saving of the the Jews, “for such a time is this” that we are called to do such and such. Other times we have a life-long focus and passion that we do what we do because of a deep God-calling.

The Hebrew wiseman recognized the hopelessness in our work apart from God:

Ecclesiastes 2: 18. “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? “

When I feel despair and discouragement over the remaining time on earth and my lack of focus and concentration, I remember another wiseman:

Colossians 3: 23. “Whatever you do work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.”

I am reminded that in the end, if I work heartily for God, honor Him through my work, behavior and life choices I will be okay. I don’t have to be anxious or worried about the outcomes- I am just called to serve God and the rest will fall into place.

I am also reminded that at the end of the day, God is sovereign and that I do not need to panic. He knows the future. He knows the exact time on the “Doomsday Clock”.

Psalm 24: 1. “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

What about you? How would you spend your “100 seconds”? Are you concentrating on your purpose in life? Are you taking for granted the little things in life, the things that make life worth living? Or are you noticing them? Are you doing your part to help our planet and others?

As I am moving forward in my existence I hope that I would have peace not panic knowing that I am completing what I am supposed to do, that the time I have on this earth is just the right amount of God-given time and that I left the planet and my relationships “better” than when I entered.