Why this global instability may be less about collapse and more about awakening.

In 2008, I sat across from a man whose life had just detonated.

His business had closed. His house was gone. The financial crisis had swept through his world like a wildfire, and he was drowning in shame, convinced this was the final chapter.

After listening for a long time, I said, “I know this is a tragedy, but I don’t believe you were brought this far to be abandoned here.”

He looked at me like I was speaking nonsense.

So, I tried a different door. “What if this isn’t the end? If it weren’t about making money, if none of that pressure existed, what would fill your life with joy?”

He went quiet. Then, almost embarrassed, he said, “I love planes, and I would love to be in an environment involving planes. I’d love to fly planes. I’d love to sell airplanes.”

That desire had been buried under years of responsibility and expectation, under a version of success that was never really his. The shaking had destroyed his old life. But it had also uncovered a dream he’d stopped letting himself want.

Six months later, he was selling planes and working on his pilot’s license. The foreclosure was still real. The failed business was still real. But they no longer defined him. What felt like pure loss had become the doorway to a truer life.

I’ve thought about that man a lot lately. Because the world is shaking again, and not just in one sector or one country. Everywhere.

The Ground Is Moving

Institutions we assumed were permanent now wobble. Certainties we built entire lives around feel strangely thin. You can sense it in the anxiety of nations, in the exhaustion of leaders, in the quiet fear that the ground may never feel steady again.

But here is what I’ve learned, from that man in 2008 and from dozens of conversations since: shaking does not only destroy. It reveals. It shows us what was never solid in the first place.

This is not just an age of chaos. It is an Age of Shaking.

And the question it presses into every one of us is not “How do I make it stop?” but “What is still standing once it does?”

The Shaking Isn’t Punishment; It’s an X-Ray

We’ve been conditioned to see disruption as judgment. When something falls apart, a career, a marriage, a system, we instinctively assume something has gone terribly wrong.

But sometimes the ground must crack so what’s buried can breathe again.

“Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” Hebrews 12:26

That verse isn’t a threat. It’s a description of how renewal works. The shaking strips away the temporary so the permanent can finally come into view. It pulls back the curtain on illusions we didn’t know we were living inside: the false security of wealth, the myth of control, the shallow comfort of staying busy enough to avoid the real questions.

And then, Isaiah 43:19 speaks directly into that rubble: “See, I am doing a new thing; now it springs up, do you not perceive it?”

The assumption is that you might miss it. That the new thing God is building could be sprouting right now, in the middle of your loss, your confusion, your stripped-down season, and you could walk right past it because you’re still staring at what collapsed. The shaking clears the ground. But you must be paying attention to see what’s growing in its place.

The Inner Earthquake

The deepest shaking of this era is not geopolitical. It’s personal.

It’s the title that once felt like solid ground, now feeling paper-thin. The relationship was built on avoidance splitting along old fault lines. The role you played so well no longer fits the person you’re becoming. The life you’ve been curating on the outside no longer matches what’s true on the inside.

This is the inner earthquake. And nearly everyone I talk to, executives, pastors, parents, and founders, is feeling some version of it.

It is not a verdict on your worth. It is an invitation to your wholeness.

When the ground of your old identity shifts, you get a rare and brutal gift: the chance to ask what’s real.

~ What have I been building my identity on?

~ What values have I quietly traded for validation?

~ Where have I outsourced my peace to status, income, or applause?

These aren’t soft questions.

They are the most strategic questions a person can ask in a season like this. Because whatever you rebuild on the other side of this shaking will only be as strong as the honesty you bring to it now.

What Standing Actually Looks Like

We are not promised a life without tremors. We are invited to build on something deeper than headlines, markets, or moods.

“He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge.” Isaiah 33:6

That word foundation matters.

Titles can be stripped, but calling endures. Income rises and falls, but character deepens in every season. Relationships change, but your capacity to love, to forgive, and to tell the truth is yours to steward regardless of circumstance. When you locate your identity in what is eternal rather than what is external, the storm still howls, but it no longer owns you.

Practically, this is not complicated. It is just hard:

Get still. Carve out time each day where no screen has access to your mind. Silence, reflection, scripture, honest journaling, whatever returns you to yourself.

Get an honest company. Surround yourself with voices that speak truth, not just comfort. People who will ask you the question you’re avoiding.

Get clear on your non-negotiables. Decide on a handful of values you will not trade under pressure and let those guide your decisions before the next crisis forces your hand.

The world does not need more noise. It needs more rooted people. Men and women who have done their inner work and can stand in the storm without becoming the storm.

Your Challenge This Week.

At some point, each of us must decide what this shaking will mean.

So here it is, and take it seriously enough to write it down:

1. Name where you are shaking. Be specific. Is it your work, your marriage, your faith, your health, your integrity? Where do you feel the ground moving?

2. Name what you truly believe. Not the slogans you post. The convictions you would stake your life on — about God, about people, about who you are and why you’re here.

3. Take one aligned action. One concrete step that brings your current reality closer to your deepest conviction. A conversation. A boundary. An apology. A decision you’ve been avoiding. Do it this week.

Then sit with this:

Where is the shaking inviting you to become more honest, more courageous, and more aligned than you’ve ever been?

Remember the man who lost everything in 2008. The shaking didn’t just take his old life. It returned him to his real one. That possibility is in front of you right now.

~ Don’t waste it.

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