Crisis!

             When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. (Psalm 94:18-19)

          I woke up this morning from dreams of crises. I’m not sure what the crisis of each dream was. I almost think that in my dreams, I woke from dreams of crisis to find myself in a crisis. I’ve told people that I have caught myself worrying about nothing. This morning, I woke worrying about the will-o'-wisps of my mind. And the verse above was the verse of the day on my Bible platform. I don’t know whether to chuckle or sigh. Dissection time.

          To begin, the writer doesn’t say “When my foot slipped.” This line describes my dream(s). The writer and I both responded as if there was a crisis. Was there a crisis? Could I be facing a crisis that my mind is trying to warn me about but that I don’t recognize yet? Or (and this is more likely), we’re entering a time of year that has tended to hold crises. This is when I usually dream about going back to school or making other big changes. It’s also been a time of the year when I have packed up as much of the house as I dared and moved to Florida. This year, I have a crisis of not doing that.

          So, did the writer’s foot slip? How far? Was he twenty-something or seventy-something? Was he actually in danger? I can understand anxiety about falling because of my knee, but according to Psychology Today, 91% of the things we worry about never happen. Another source said that when the thing did happen, 79% thought they handled the situation better than they expected to. In the last year, I’ve been at the edges of two hurricanes and in the middle of a “snowmageddon.” I’m part of that 79% even though one of my recurring concerns is “I’m not prepared for emergencies.”

          And the 79% makes perfect sense. The regular distribution of populations claims that 64% of the population is nearly average. Another 32% is either above or below average. The other 4% is either exceptionally gifted or extremely not gifted. So, most of the time, most of us will muddle through. We also tend to have a distorted view of ourselves (and others.) We think we’re either superior to others or inferior. I tend to be a tennis ball in a high-speed match.

          God’s answer to this crisis was to support with His love. And how do parents respond when their child has a nightmare? “It’s OK. You’re alright. It wasn’t real. I’m here to protect you.” In other words, they bring reality back into the equation. There’s an aphorism we may not like. “Sometimes God calms the storm. Sometimes, He calms His child.” I think the latter is more necessary more often because even if we know the crisis isn’t real doesn’t mean we can escape its grasp until or unless we can find calmness in the midst of the storm.