Faith can help us allay the fretting

It seems to me as if society has fallen into a rut when we are presented with problems, and I’m not sure that rut is good at identifying the reality of a problem or potential solutions. 
Let me explain by listing some of the more recent disasters and panics with which we have been faced:  killer bees (the first of these panics that I can recall), power lines, cell phones, ebola, bird flu, swine flu, avian flu, SARS, Lyme disease, the year 2012, anthrax, Y2K, genetically modified food, asteroids, flesh eating bacteria, mad cow disease, West Nile virus, shark attacks, Large Hadron Collider, and our most recent “panic de jour” – global warming.
Now how, you might ask, does any of this tie into Faith and Family?  Well, how doesn’t it?  Where is our faith? 
It seems as if we have become a nation of worriers, begging to be led by the nose to whichever disaster is the favorite of the media.  Now please do not misunderstand.  I am sure there are some individual horribly unfortunate stories associated with any number of the above topics.  But does it rise to the level of a national disaster and the attendant hundreds of billions of dollars and untold angst expended.
 Let me give you an example.  In the year 1999 we were warned that the apocalypse in some way, shape, or form loomed just around the corner.  Planes would fall from the sky, elevators would crash into basements, power plants would shut down, stars would align so that tides would swamp us, blah, blah, blah….  Get the picture? 
Let’s see now, what happened?  As I recall, nothing happened – other than some people selling a whole lot of “solutions” to this problem and pocketing a whole bunch of money.  Personally, to my wife’s dismay, I slept through that New Year’s Eve. 
Our next Armageddon moment is the year 2012 and the so called end of the Mayan calendar (it doesn’t really end – but that’s another discussion). 
I’ll make a prediction.  Nothing will happen, other than people spending a lot of money on solutions for problems that do not exist. 
I’ll make some more predictions.  For all practical purposes, none of us will die as a result of global warming, shark attacks, killer bees, flesh eating bacteria, anthrax, mad cow disease, or a black hole from the Large Hadron Collider. 
Another prediction, someone, somewhere is going to make a boatload of money from 2012 scares, global warming scares (a certain nameless former vice president has seen his net worth rise from $2 million to $100 million in 8 years of leading the global warming cabal), black hole dissolvers, etc. etc.  Starting to get the picture?
Where is our faith?  Quite frankly, we’ve become a land of the fretting and the feeble minded ready to be led from one panic to another whose instigators have as their sole purpose separating us from both our resources and our sanity.  Worrying is so antithetical to the life of faith.  We are constantly challenged in the Bible to not worry. 
Read Matthew 13:22, Luke 10:41, and Matthew 6:31.  We have become those pagans we were warned not to be like. 
And is it any surprise?  After all, have we placed our focus on thinking as God thinks, or on thinking as man thinks? 
Remember the Jewish carpenter whom we follow?  When did he get upset?  I recall it was when people’s basic needs were not being met and when the poor were being cheated and taken advantage of. 
I have no recollection of him railing against or about killer bees.  No sir, I cannot find it in my Bible.
Now I’m not suggesting that we not care for our environment or our health.  I have to live and breathe and eat, too - but a little perspective, please. 
When we have real problems that involve the real needs of the people alongside of whom we work, study, worship, and eat, do we really need to be chasing problems which are, at best, marginally authentic? 
When the emotional, medical, physical, and educational needs of many of our children are not even being discussed, you’ll pardon me please if I do not get too upset about an increase of a few dozen parts per million of carbon dioxide. 
I’d be willing to bet that in spite of all the carbon dioxide released, Jesus would have enjoyed a good barbecue.  We know he presided over some great fish fries. 
Let’s all take a deep breath of sweet clean air, relax a little bit, think for a few minutes, really look at the world around us, and ask if some of these situations aren’t just solutions looking for a problem.  God bless you, with love.