January 23, 2008
Wide-Spread Panic
Philippians 4:6-7

Last Saturday I was driving home from our annual staff retreat. In the car with me were two music lovers talking about a group named “Widespread Panic” --- which I found out later was a southern rock band from Athens, Georgia. After hearing my two friends talk about the music of Widespread Panic, I then turned on the radio and actually heard some. Not the music mind you, but some real, authentic wide-spread panic.
Snow and temperatures were falling in Atlanta, and by 3:30 in the p.m. the radio stations were playing their own renditions of wide-spread panic. I got home and the TV stations were adding to the chaos. Predictions were calling for ice, high winds, and temps in the teens by next morning. As one radio announcer voiced, “It’s going to be bad in the morning.” Wide-spread panic.

Of course, most of us know what happened. Wide-spread panic. By late Saturday afternoon church after church was being listed as cancelled for the next morning. By early evening my email and phone was being lit up. Were we going to cancel, or were we going to boldly ignore the hysteria and laugh in the cold, cold face of wide-spread panic?

We succumbed. We reasoned it would be better safe than sorry. To value our many staff and volunteers, we decided to make the call by early evening on Saturday. We rested on our teaching that it’s not about going to church, but rather BEING the church… and people could stay home and do this with the advent of the winter weather conditions.

By late night on this fateful Saturday, I heard a TV weather man sheepishly begin talking about the high winds that were coming into Georgia. He said (and I quote with an attitude), “The winds are going to dry off most of our road surfaces, but the church parking lots are going to be very icy.” What did I just hear? It seemed as if the very guy who created the wide-spread panic was now back peddling. He was trying to justify why so many Atlanta churches had consequently shut down. After moving here from Denver, Colorado, I did think this whole episode was a bit strange. “Only in Atlanta,” I thought to myself. And then I decided to go get me some… Widespread Panic that is. I needed a good CD of a southern rock band from Athens just to calm me down.

How often do I allow fear, doubt and wide-spread panic to debilitate my thinking? Have I caved to the power of uncertainty, and then consequently wished I had been more bold? Where is God in all of this? How can He help?
The Bible tells me not to “fret.” (Doesn’t “fret” sound like a good word found in a song of a southern-rebel-boogie-rock band from Athens?) Instead of opening the flood gates to worry, I am instructed by God’s Word to pray. Why do I allow wide-spread panic to run it’s course, AND THEN I decide to pray? There must be a way I can start allowing prayer to shape my worries and concerns. I know how Jesus can displace my fears. My consistent handicap, however, is not letting Him.

God, help me to believe you love me and want only the best for me. Help me to believe how you work in everything for my good. Help me to pray first, and fight off the fear and sin whose name is Wide-Spread Panic.