Of
course the ideal response in meeting a crisis is effective action and
stamina. It is not always obvious the surest and straightest path to
get there. Fear is typically our first response to crisis, followed
with a moment when we are frozen in fear—this period of inaction
brings on a sense of guilt from which we escape through impulsive,
often ineffective action. When the crisis proves intractable, we
enter the chronic "worry mode". In short, prayer becomes
an afterthought and faith a stranger. So, in the nature of things,
we put the cart before the horse. Prayer and faith are fundamental
for they help us define the meaning of the crisis and help us delimit
its nature within a context of fundamental goals and long-term
essential values. Thusly anchored, we are sufficiently grounded to
engage in confident, effective, and assured action. The difficulty
arises when the crisis is social and not personal and when myopic,
divisive objectives confound the search for common shared values.
This puts us into an argumentative mode, not a prayerful one. Yet
prayer and faith with their emphasis on the long-term provide the
only reliable answer – perhaps only after the crisis becomes a
greater one and finally threatens utter ruin. Then, as a last
resort, we may be sufficiently humbled to search for shared essential
values though faith and prayer. We, in the end, may find it more
effective to worship God and not ourselves.
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