Once upon a time, according to a classic children's folk tale, there was a little chicken. Everyone in the barnyard called him—what else? Chicken Little. One day a bird flew over and dropped an acorn on his head. (He was lucky it wasn't anything else!) Chicken Little said “Awk” and looked up but didn't see anything, so he cried, “Help! Help! The sky is falling. (misunderstood assumption) I have to tell the King.” (He knew that the King would set him straight. The King knew the Truth.) So the story goes...

Chicken Little met a flock of his barnyard friends who questioned him. Henny Penny asked, “Buk-buk-buk, what's the rush?”

“Haven't you heard? The sky is falling! I'm looking for the King.”

“How exciting. Can I go too?” And they went down the road together shouting, “Help, help, the sky is falling! We have to tell the King.”

They met Goosey Loosey who asked the same question with a “Honk, honk!” and eagerly joined them. Next it was Turkey Lurkey. He tagged along with a Gobble-gobble.

But when they met Foxey Loxey, he had an alternative idea. “The King is in my den. But he doesn't like to feel crowded, so I'd better bring you in one by one. Who wants to go first?” [Be careful, barnyard citizens. False prophets will come to deceive even those who look earnestly for the King, and will mislead many.]

I'm the biggest,” said Turkey Lurkey [Be careful about pride.] Gobble, gobble. I want to see the King. “Me first!” And he pushed the others aside.

“Come with me,” sneered Foxey Loxey, and they went into his dug out [basement?] together. The bystanders heard frenzied squawking; feathers came flying out, and the fox called, “Next!” Last of all, Henny Penny jumped in. Squawks and feathers again...and then...no sound at all!

Oh-oh! Chicken Little remembered that it was his turn to take the garbage out, and he ran home. Poor Chicken Little never got to see the King. [He also lived to tell this story.]

That's a silly ending to the children's story, isn't it? It seems there are different versions of the ending, depending on the age of the child listening to the story and whatever dramatic gory-story barnyard noises the parent or reader tries to imitate.

Let’s stop pretending or make-believe. If not already, sooner or later the sky WILL be falling in your own life and in the lives of those around you. The Foxey Loxeys of this world are hard at work carrying out their well-planned global resets. “Perilous times WILL come,” Jesus warned.

Perhaps things in the sky don't look to you like they're falling yet? Jesus foretold many of those things in Matthew 24—not about mere acorns, but powerful, catastrophic things falling from the heavens—stars and the like. Other things also fall from the sky: lightning strikes, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes—and bombs, nuclear missiles, EMP attacks—ominous things against which a new Space Force has been established in our country. And from under our feet: volcano eruptions, earthquakes, the groaning of the earth and the roaring of the oceans causing tsunamis.

“But surely not here, not now, “ we may reason. (2 Peter 3:4,5) “In the last days mockers...will say, '...all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation....'” History begs to differ.

Look around in the dense darkness which is descending upon our society and culture. Morality is in disarray. crash of the economy, unstable currency, loss of jobs, lawlessness applauded, justice a travesty, evil is called good and good evil.  “Last days” do seem to be at our door. Any one of those things could make us feel that “the sky is falling.”

Chicken Little had the right idea to go inform the King, (who, of course, would already have known about it). There are many Foxey Loxey predators around who make grand promises but lure unsuspecting barnyard citizens into their lairs. Our King of kings is the Source of Truth, our only Refuge and sure Way through the maze and haze which is descending upon us. We don't have to go looking for Him. Jesus reminded Philip that he already knew The Way—Jesus Himself is The Way. The King dwells in our hearts. He is firmly on His throne with the “government still upon His shoulders.”

God is in control, although it seems that at the moment the wicked rage and afflict the righteous and have the upper hand. Immerse yourself in the certainty of the promise of Psalm 37: “[The evildoers] will wither quickly like the grass, and fade like the green herb. Even if the wicked prospers in his way” and tries like Foxey Loxey to “carry out wicked schemes, is full of wrongdoing, plots against the righteous, gnashes at us with his teeth, tries to cast down the afflicted and the needy, slay those who are upright in conduct. [Read today's front page breaking news.] “The Lord laughs at him for He sees his day of reckoning is coming.”

What will you do when it looks as if the sky is falling in your own life, when “ten thousand are falling at your right hand?” Do you know the difference between conspiracy theories and actual facts? Are you a victim of Chicken Little's well-meaning misinformation? “No evil will befall [fall on] you.” (Psalm 91:7,8,10) Around us, “men's hearts may seem to be failing them for fear.” Are you trusting The King to see you through? Can you be “hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” ? (2 Cor. 4:8,9)? We may soon have a chance to find out.

“He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 97:10). That sure promise is for us as it was for the folklore Chicken Little who escaped out of the claws and den of Foxey Loxey. “It is He [God] who delivers you from the snare of the trapper” (91:3).

We might summarize some of the moral messages of the story as follows: Don't believe just anybody who has a long nose and a bushy tail and prefers living in a basement [dugout den]. Don’t form incorrect conclusions from insufficient data; Don’t stoke fear in others without good cause; Don’t take other people’s word for things, especially when those other people are making extraordinary claims (which should require extraordinary evidence). But DO seek the Truth from the King of kings!

What is there about the following promise that we don't understand? “You who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 97:10).  “It is He [God] who delivers You from the snare of the trapper” (91:3).

I watched the evening news on TV in disbelief as the camera panned the landscape in Ukraine briefly identifying a shallow mass grave in the rubble as a result of the bombing. There were no markers with NAMES. Who were they? Unknown civilians, children, and the elderly, suddenly cut down when fleeing to safety from the ongoing war?

We carry our NAME lifelong, respond to it in a classroom, answer when our NAME is called at graduation, and present our ID thousands of times when asked. Although we seem to leave our NAME behind engraved on a cemetery marker or in an unmarked grave, the truth is that we carry our particular identity into Eternity and keep it to respond to a heavenly roll call. In addition, God said He would give us a new NAME.

The Scriptures record the words of Jesus declaring that He calls us each by NAME and we hear and respond to His voice. Until we experience the heavenly dimension of immortality for ourselves, we can never grasp how intimately God knows each of us. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it” (Psalm 139:6).

Equally solemn and heart-wrenching is listening in silence each September 11 to the repeated ringing of a bell. Then the reading of the NAMES of each of the 2996 people who lost their lives in the tragedy of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania farm field in 2001. Not only was it a massive catastrophe but an intensely personal one called to remembrance with the speaking of an individual's NAME.

A NAME is one's private possession. We live and die along with the rest of humanity that has been born or will exist in the future. Although one's NAME might be duplicated sometime in history, each life is unique and identifiable to God who created our distinctiveness.

When I visited Jerusalem, the Yad Vashem memorial for the Holocaust drew my attention. The library cataloged the NAMES of the six million Jewish martyrs. Not only where they were born and lived, but any details that could be found about them were recorded. Each person existed and mattered and continues to matter. “Yad Vashem” literally means “memorial to the NAME.”

The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. displays fifty thousand NAMES of American soldiers killed in Vietnam. Loved ones experience profound emotion when they reach out and touch a NAME with their hand.

The more than 400,000 white crosses in Arlington National Cemetery display real NAMES. Even the body in the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the other unknowns buried there since are fully known to God. Each has a NAME unforgettable to God.

Men and women in the American military were formerly issued aluminum “dog tags.” Currently, they are pressed from an alloy of copper and nickel with their NAMES and vital information.

Each of us is important. Our lives are important and worthy to be remembered and recorded. We don't have to be celebrities to leave a legacy for our posterity. As a coach to writers, I encourage each person, whether gifted in writing or not, to take pen in hand (or computer) and leave some information for those who come after us that this is who we are and how we lived. I believe it to be part of our stewardship to God in thanksgiving for His precious gift of life—and name.

“Rejoice that your NAMES are recorded in heaven,” Jesus declared. The apostle Paul writes about has fellow workers “whose NAMES are in the book of life” (Phil. 4:3). The disciple John mentions six times in the book of Revelation that “NAMES are written in the Book of Life, the Lamb's Book of Life” in indelible ink because Jesus promised never to erase them. (Revelation 3:5) “He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his NAME from the Book of Life, and I will confess his NAME before My Father and His angels.”

What's in a name? Everything! “God has now lifted him [Jesus] so high and has given him the NAME beyond all NAMES so that at the NAME of Jesus “every knee shall bow”, whether in Heaven or earth or under the earth. YES, In the end, “every tongue shall confess” that Jesus Christ” is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father.