the temptation to boycott the news taunts me daily. or rather, is it an invitation from the sane part of my brain?

I enjoy watching the evening news. partly to stay informed about my country, and hopefully to stay informed about the world. with the drama surrounding oil, however, my tolerance for their fascination with fear has been exhausted. day after day after day after day after day they offer us a buffet of bad news, and I’m fed up. we all know about the problem, how about discussing solutions?

a dear sister of mine, a prayer warrior on staff with Dallas Seminary, expressed to me just yesterday, “the Enemy is busy enough, we don’t need to help him.” our Adversary slobbers with fear and exults in our franticness. I’m not calling ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, or any of the other gazillion agencies conduits of Satan. not at all. I am saying that we as Christians are called to a different message, and I want our voice to resound as loudly, or louder, than theirs.

our times are not unique. in the 1890s, the stock market crashed because a large contingency of America rallied for silver to be the monetary standard. in the early 1900s our country staggered under the weight of WWI, the Depression, and WWII. if that wasn’t enough, along came the Korean War of the 1950s, the assassination of MLK in the 1960s, Vietnam and the oil crisis of the 1970s. the 1980s left a legacy of horrific music (which I happen to love), the 1990s the Gulf War, star suicides and school shootings, and now we have another war, melting mortgages, and supply/demand run amuck.

the brokenness bleeds us perpetually. but our King reigns more constant, more faithful, and more worthy of our fascination. we can find fear anywhere. only Jesus offers hope. our churches must be beacons of this grace.

to end where I started, every once in a while a bright and shiny thing stings my eye. solutions surface, such as this abc news video that tells the story of people choosing to work for hope rather than enslave themselves to fear.