Manufactured Crisis

A thought came to me the other day on why people are freaking out about this economic crisis...it is a real one.

We live in a world that manufactures crisis to increase ratings. Most of these crisis are solved by the media within a 24 news cycle and then the news anchors, blogs, and pundits are on to the next thing.

Things like a West Nile outbreak or a salmonella contamination are so blown out of proportion, they have you thinking you are probably going to be the next victim, that is until it disappears from the news tomorrow.

Political correctness issues, correct job titles for women, no Christmas trees in public places, women who won't take off their headscarves for a photo, are thrown at us thousands of times every week.

We begin to think that these are the real problems in life. We have been so desensitized to crisis that when it doesn't disappear in 24 hours, people cannot handle it.

The media can't solve it, the politicians can't talk their way out of it, the best minds in business can't wheel and deal their way out of it. Maybe this is God's way of telling us to quit trusting in man and return our trust to Him.

I don't have a solution to the economic problems, but I do have a piece of advise. Stop worrying and pray. I have had trouble with panic in the past and have found the Psalms to be a comfort. David knew real crisis and wrote many of the Psalms. Some verses I find especially fitting for our current situation is:

Psalm 146:3

Put not your trust in princes, Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. The following verses are ones I have quoted again and again to people who have asked me where my stability in times of trial comes from. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount gave believers an outline of how they should go about their lives:

Matthew 6:25-34

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

These are not lilies. I like sunflowers more than lilies and the point is still the same.

²⁸"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

My ability to deal with crisis does not come from myself. It comes from a faith that is bigger than me or any other human could provide.