Anxiety is part of the human condition. It’s the biggest source of mental illness in the U. S. The National Institute of Mental Health says 19.1 percent of Americans suffered from anxiety disorder in the past year. More than 10 percent take medications for it.
Thankfully, I’m not one of them but I have anxiety. My anxiety stems from a profound sense of history. For most of human existence life has been nasty, brutish and short.
I was sitting in my regular pew at the Covenant Presbyterian Church recently, when Pastor Josh Cole read a passage from 2 Kings.
Sometime later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!” The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.” When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and they saw that, under his robes, he had sackcloth on his body.
— 2 Kings 6:24-31, NIV
This Thanksgiving some Northsiders might be boiling food, but I’m pretty sure nobody will have to be boiling their babies to keep from starving. For that, I am immensely thankful.
Indeed, walk into any grocery store and the aisle will be full of just about any food imaginable. If you have money, it’s there for you to buy. If you have less money, the government provides you with food stamps to help. For this I am thankful.
If 3,000 years ago is too far in the distant past to fret about, try 500 years ago. Consider this AI summary:
Yes, it is true that people caught hunting on royal land in England could be hanged, even to feed a starving family. The forest laws, established after the Norman Conquest, made it illegal for commoners to hunt game in royal forests, and the punishment for poaching was severe, often including hanging. The death penalty was the penalty for taking a deer, a crime considered so serious it could be punished by hanging, though other punishments like blinding, castration, or the loss of a limb could also be handed out depending on the time period and specific offense.
Today, there’s not much starvation in Mississippi. The far greater risk is diabetes and heart disease from being obese. Even in Africa obesity has overtaken malnutrition as the greater public health problem.
When I get down, I tell myself, “Well at least I don’t have to boil any babies.” It may not work for you, but it works for me. When I think about historical harshness, my First World problems seem to just fade away.
So many of our worries and frets come from our own greed and sin. We don’t own our possessions. Our possessions own us. If you can be happy with little, you will have a much better chance of fighting off modern day stress.
It’s easy for me to say, I’ve been blessed with so much. But I do have my struggles. My industry, which I love so dearly, has been ravaged by Big Tech. The new PR theme of our national press organization is “Theft is Not Innovation.”
I could sit you down and tell you the story of my life and you would think I was the unluckiest person who ever lived. Or I could tell you a story that would make you think I was the most blessed person who ever lived. It’s just a question of which story I choose to tell.
They call this cognitive behaviorism. Your thoughts can actually change your behavior. If you count your blessings and think about all the wonderful things in your life, you will naturally be happier. And the opposite is true.
Somewhere along my path of life I realized that if I lost all my possessions, nothing would change. I’d wake up. Make a cup of coffee and figure out what I had to do today. I’d work hard all day, go home and have a happy dinner and a glass of wine with my family. That’s as good as it gets.
When I wake up, the first thing I do is say, “Thank you God for a good night’s sleep.” Then I lay in the bed and start thanking God for so many answered prayers and pray for more answers.
I remember driving back with Ginny from Memphis where we met with counselors about one of our children going through a rough adolescence. We were bemoaning our situation. Then we started thinking about all our good friends and their challenges in life. We couldn’t find one good friend who hadn’t faced monumental challenges. The only people we could name that had it easy were the people we really didn’t know that well.
Everybody struggles. Life is hard. Even in modern society life is hard. Nobody gets off scott free. That’s just the way it is. It’s not about this world. This world is a test. We wouldn’t be judged if it were not a test. But the good news is that the next world will be unimaginably better. So much better that we won’t look back for an eternity. That’s something to be thankful for.
And we’ve already been given the answer to the test. Our get out of jail free card? It’s simple faith. Faith in our Savior. That’s something to be thankful for.
I am thankful for living in one of the most spiritual places in the world. We have a church on nearly every corner. Mississippians are the most generous people in the U. S. I am so thankful to be surrounded by believers. I cannot imagine what life would be like without that.
A deliciously prepared turkey is wonderful. But spiritual food is finer.
