Why do we follow the news of the day? For some it can cause anxiety, for others it causes peace . . . temporarily. For we all know, the news of the day doesn’t go our way. If everyone can say that, then why do we worry or concern ourselves?

For me, I like to stay up to date to see the mindset of the people around me in the local news, and, more distantly, over me. I think that it is important to know how people’s decisions affect my daily life, especially my right to freely worship.

I don’t do it to determine my daily actions or even, more subtly, my daily emotions. When I do this, my life is chaotic and full of anxiety. I am like a flag in the wind that is ever changing by my environment and every opinion I hear.

I would like to say that I read my Bible and pray more often than I listen to current events. For when I do this, I am full of peace. Not because I am perfect or the world around me is perfect, but because I know I am taken care of even when it seems I am surrounded by darkness. There are times that God is working something in me that is being pushed out like a festered thorn. True to the analogy, it hurts in the moment, but the reward of the sin (thorn) leaving me is worth the pain.

So why the news? For awareness, not fear or anxiety. As a parent, I don’t believe that a God that loves us so much that he sent his son to this wretched place to live among mortals and be humiliated by a horrendously painful and shameful death is now unaware of our daily lives. Nor does he want us to bury our head in the sand and play dumb if we see the actions of evil men around us. He would wish for us not to face it. He would be delighted if no man had chosen evil, but again in his infinite love, he also gave us free will. He gave us the ability and desire to choose for ourselves whom we’d serve. So the reality is that not all choose Him. As a result, we live in a sinful world.

I choose to be aware so that I can be a light to fellow believers and to the evil men around me. I choose to stand in the midst of chaos and to be an example for Him so that others may see Christ on earth. Not that He needs it, because he could call legions from heaven at any moment, but so that I don’t change. If you also stand, I pray that other men see our steadfastness in the midst of a storm, and they will see who’s made us steadfast, not morons with blinders. To fellow believers, stay the course, let His truth continue to guide you, and take care of what He has given you.

So it is more important that we know who made tomorrow than to know what tomorrow holds. For no man could tell us tomorrow, even if he wanted.

– Written by Kati