This summer, the 45th president of the United States was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a short two-hour drive from our World Headquarters Campus in Wadsworth, Ohio.

No one was prepared for what occurred at 6:11 p.m. on Saturday, July 13, though many thought it possible—even likely—in the current political climate. I had voiced this expectation for months to a close circle.

The most powerful nation on Earth is in a time of bitter divide. A sense of desperation grips the U.S., with no clear path forward. Amplifying the instability, the current president withdrew from the presidential race. America is in truly uncharted territory.

But the country’s political uncertainty is far from the only major issue threatening to throw the world into complete chaos.

In his first public speech following the assassination attempt, the former president gave a dire assessment of the state of the world: “Nobody can believe what’s happening. War is now raging in Europe and the Middle East, a growing specter of conflict hangs over Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and all of Asia, and our planet is teetering on the edge of World War III, and this will be a war like no other war because of weaponry. The weapons are no longer army tanks going back and forth, shooting at each other. These weapons [lead to] obliteration.

“It’s time for a change,” he added.

The Church of God does not take sides politically (Phil. 3:20)—only on matters of right and wrong. But everyone reading this, regardless of political affiliation, can agree change is desperately needed!

But would change brought by the hands of any human candidate be enough? The world is rapidly spiraling out of control. Problems are now too many and too complex. Even if domestic and geopolitical wounds were somewhat temporarily healed, most sense the world has entered a new and more dangerous frontier, marked by uncertainty that cannot be pushed back beneath the surface.

As things grow more confusing, the hope for a better future seems more and more elusive. Maybe you are like many who are questioning why we are here and why the world has come to this.

I wrote a booklet titled Why Do You Exist? It begins with a series of questions that are now more pressing than ever: “Why were you born? Is there a reason—a meaning—for your life? Is your existence part of a divine plan?

“Was mankind placed on Earth by an all-wise Creator as part of a great Purpose—a MASTER PLAN?”

These are the same questions I asked as a teenager in the tense political climate of the late 1960s. I had witnessed the Cuban Missile Crisis, the successful assassination of a president and growing fears of World War III. But the world is now magnitudes worse than it was as I was entering adulthood! The RIGHT answers to these fundamental questions are now more relevant than ever.

More than anything, humanity is in the grips of what can only be characterized as worldwide character breakdown. This collapse is the cause of all the bad effects we are seeing.

Notice what the prophet Isaiah recorded about our time now: “Behold, the Lord’ s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness. None calls for justice, nor any pleads for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity” (59:1-4).

Later in the same chapter, Isaiah further describes this current era of confusion and lies before pointing to the only true solution for change, regardless of how sincerely men would like to bring it this side of the Kingdom of God:

“Judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yes, truth fails; and he that departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment. And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him” (vs. 14-16).

God’s intervention promised in Isaiah is the only path out of this darkest of times. Political platforms and solutions of men—however well-intentioned—cannot pull humanity back from the brink. Only sweeping character change brought by God’s Kingdom can permanently solve every problem mankind now grapples with.

I urge you to request my free booklet Why Do You Exist? You, too, can learn the Bible answers to life’s most pressing questions—the same ones I was led to examine more than 50 years ago—and what your role can be in bringing permanent change to this broken world!