It is getting increasingly difficult to get a fix on the Y2K Problem. Advice comes from everywhere, "Head for the hills!", "Buy gold!" According to some it is the end of life as we know it. Others insist that everything is under control and that the day will pass with only minor disruptions. Unfortunately, I believe that the first assessment is probably closer to the truth.

Updating computers would not help things, for the most part. The problem is not in the parts that can be easily updated. The problem is (and will be) those dark recesses of mainframe programs that will suddenly become inoperative. These programs have been, on the whole, operating so smoothly that we take their existence for granted. They have insinuated themselves deeply into the fabric of our infrastructure. (Well, we put them there) Things like food requisitioning to cities, electric and water utilities, telecommunication (the Internet - gasp!) all depend on those ancient computers being able to know what 2000 means.

By "dark recesses" I mean: Many of these code sections are written by programmers who are the only ones who know where they are. And many of these programmers have since died. Many sections are written in modular form (cobol here, fortran there, machine language even). Many sections are in the hardware itself, not in any purgeable software.

Christians shouldn't worry about this problem and seem to show to the world that we don't really believe God's promise that He "will never leave us or forsake us". I do believe this will be a real crisis that will strengthen true believers and remind them to redirect their trust in God. Surely our Father knows of our needs even before we can recognize or articulate them. Even if the power goes out, the promises of God's Word will still be there.
This is a great opportunity for Christians to witness (in both senses of the word) as the world comes to a major shakeup. It will not be easy. But we will have a great opportunity to point to One who does the shaking!

There are also practical things we can do. These are discussed in the following links.

Gary North's Site

Y2KNet

     

hits since August 30, 1998.

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