Life and Its Anxiety

July 14

Life can be fraught with anxiety. We awaken each morning to news that is troubling on every hand. Whether we read our newspapers or watch our televisions, we are bombarded with the latest reports of man’s inhumanity to man or of governmental wheeling and dealing or of judicial renderings that are contrary to God’s law.

A Florida trial has been televised nationally that states the case of a neighborhood watch representative who was purported to have been accosted in the carrying out of his duties by the teen he was following who is alleged to have attacked him.

The outcome of the altercation was the death of the teen. Here we have two heartbroken families and a tinder-box potential for a community aflame now that the verdict of ‘not guilty’ has been rendered.

Meanwhile, it is alleged that this weekend alone 72 black people were shot and 12 of them killed in Chicago while the media obsesses over the Florida case which involves a dead black youth and an Hispanic defendant. This sounds much more like race bating by the news reporters than it sounds like their conveying of facts.

If they are endeavoring to use the news to stir up racial tensions and hatred it seems the media are achieving their goal. If, however, they are striving to simply report the facts as they exist, they are missing the opportunity to do so more often than not. How are law-abiding people to survive in this atmosphere of discord?

The main thing we can do is to remember that our lives have been secured for time and eternity into the hand of the Savior. With this understanding, we may say like Paul in Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” We needn’t count our lives precious because God counts them precious!

The Holy One has assured us, “When you pass through rough waters, I will be with you; when you cross raging rivers, you will not drown. Even if you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; neither will the flames kindle upon you,” Isaiah 43:2. As David affirmed in Psalm 3:3, “Lord, You are my shield…You give me courage.”

We who know Him, who believe His Word, trust Him in all times, in all circumstances; and each of us is sure that we may say, as did Paul, “He is able to keep all that I’ve committed to Him,” II Timothy 1:12.