Help Wanted: Modern Day Prophet to guide people through volatile, uncertain times.   No previous experience required.  Must be willing to take instruction and be detail-oriented.  Commanding voice and facial hair a plus.    Depending on job performance, commission based compensation can vary from love offerings to a king’s ransom.

Sounds like a pretty good gig, doesn’t it?  The problem is, even if you get the job, you have to wait around for God to feed you your lines, and there’s no telling if or when that will happen.  There’s actually a much easier way to become a modern day prophet.

George Santayana said, “To know your future, you must know your past,” and therein lies the key to ‘prophecy.’   People don’t learn lessons very easily and, while that’s a problem for the human race, it’s a golden opportunity for a clever person to cash in.  The following easy-to-use guide can put you on the fast track to becoming a self-proclaimed prophet:

1.  Predict an economic crisis.  Investing in the stock market these days is like riding the Cyclone at Coney Island.   If there’s one constant in the financial markets, it is inconsistency.   With on-going mortgage defaults, the European Debt crisis, and the never-ending budget debate in the US, there are sure to be more hair-raising free falls just around the corner.

2.  As long as the rich get richer and everyone else feels poor and powerless, protest movements will continue to grow.  In the US, the top 1% controls 40% of the wealth; the top 10% possesses 90%.  That kind of wealth gap is unsustainable and leaves a big chunk of the population without much to lose.  If people don’t even have hope, an escalation of unrest is easy to foresee.

3.  Natural and/or environmental disasters are the prophet’s best friend.  Hurricanes and tornadoes are ripping around the country at a record pace, not to mention there are always fires, earthquakes, flooding, and winter storms.   Tying your ‘prediction’ to an energy-related company (off-shore drilling, nuclear reactors, coal mining, etc.) is a nice extra touch with minimum downside risk.

4.  Count on a crazy person to commit a horrific hate crime.  We expose the paranoid and delusional to a media that constantly vilifies one  segment of society; Muslims, gays, immigrants, liberals, conservatives.  After painting a target on someone’s back, we then give almost anyone access to automatic firearms.   “Predicting” a horrible outcome is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

5.  Celebrities fall off their pedestals and into the gutter with regularity, so picking one or two crashes is a safe bet.   You can pick up bonus points if you specify a politician – and you might as well make them males embroiled in a sex scandal.

You can come up with your own “predictions,” but these will get you started.  These ‘unexpected events’ happen with such regularity they have almost become routine – and yet we always seem surprised, even shocked, when they inevitably occur.

Of course, it is possible that things could change… Instead of being mired down in ideology, Washington could work together to solve our financial woes.  They could ask the wealthiest to do a little more for the little guy who’s barely scraping by, or limit campaign contributions from lobbyists, or a host of other common sense, ethical solutions.gu

It’s conceivable we could also address global warming rather than pretend it isn’t happening or make up excuses why it’s not our fault.  We could make it tougher to obtain a weapon that fires 500 rounds a minute.   And we could stop abdicating our brains to pompous pundits who spew hate.

All these things could happen… but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

One final warning: If you do take the job, there is an outside chance God might actually decide to speak through you.  If so, The Almighty might tell you He’s already given people the power to change the world for the better and command us to make a more just and equitable society.  Of course, those things require sacrifice and taking responsibility for our actions.

People will not want to hear that stuff, which is when the job can get sticky.  That’s why Jesus warned would-be prophets, “Therefore, I am sending prophets and wise men and teachers.  Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue them from town to town.” (Matthew 23:34)

I don’t mean to discourage anyone from going into this highly “prophetable” line of work.   It’s a long shot that you’ll ever hear from the Big Man.  However, you might want to keep a bag packed, just in case you need to make a fast escape.

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Jeff Fulmer lives in Nashville Tennessee and is the author of the book Hometown Prophet.  If God spoke through a prophet today, would we really want to hear what he has to say?   For more information, visit the Hometown Prophet website.   Follow on Twitter or  like on Facebook .