PSALM 93

¹   The LORD is king, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved;
²  your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.
³   The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring.
⁴   More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the LORD!
⁵   Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O LORD, forevermore.

JOHN 14:1-7

¹“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

But there are troubles in our lives. There are tragedies, there is sickness, there is litigation and complaints. There are rumour makers and haters who delight in causing offence by making up stories. We are told that we should worry, for we find ourselves in trouble, and the pagans rightly would be concerned.

The Hugos are the big prestigious award for science fiction and fantasy. One of my books was a finalist for best novel. A bunch of other works that I recommended showed up in other categories. Because I’m an outspoken right winger, hilarity ensued.
Many of you have never heard of me before, but the internet was quick to explain to you what a horrible person I am. There have been allegations of fraud, vote buying, log rolling, and making up fake accounts. The character assassination has started as well, and my detractors posted and tweeted and told anyone who would listen about how I was a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, a rape apologist, an angry white man, a religious fanatic, and how I wanted to drag homosexuals to death behind my pickup truck.
The libel and slander over the last few days have been so ridiculous that my wife was contacted by people she hasn’t talked to for years, concerned that she was married to such a horrible, awful, hateful, bad person, and that they were worried for her safety.
I wish I was exaggerating.

Larry Correia may be a Mormon and a gun nut, and he is right-wing. But he generally is not a hater — and I was reading his facebook posts well before all this happened. People make things up. People expect that we will meet their standards of perfection, which are higher than those of Christ. [Nothing new here: it is why Christ called Pharisees hypocrites].

Yet Christ tells us not to worry, when things are going horribly wrong in our life. When worry is an emotion we will have. And the temptation to acedia, despair is great, and sloth, envy and snark greater. Instead he tells us to focus on him, and his work.

In the service the preacher quoted a theologian who commented that the level of anxiety in US high school students is the same as those in psychiatric hospitals in the 1950s. Since I write on generalized worry, and have a fair knowledge of psychiatric epidemiology, I would want to see data. Well, I am on the internet, so… if you use a fairly standard way of measuring such things, around 40% of adolescents have some disorder. The rate for adults in  most English speaking nations is around 20%

DSM-IV Disordera	DSM-IV Disorders
	Sex				Age						Total		with Severe Impairment
	Female		Male		13–14 yr		15–16 yr		17–18 yr
	%	SE	%	SE	%	SE	%	SE	%	SE	%	SE	%	SE
Mood disorders
Major depressive disorder or dysthymia	15.9	1.3	7.7	0.8	8.4	1.3	12.6	1.3	15.4	1.4	11.7	0.9	8.7	0.8
Bipolar I or II	3.3	0.4	2.6	0.3	1.9	0.3	3.1	0.3	4.3	0.7	2.9	0.3	2.6	0.2
Any mood disorder	18.3	1.4	10.5	1.1	10.5	1.3	15.5	1.4	18.1	1.6	14.3	1.0	11.2	1.0
Anxiety disorders
Agoraphobia	3.4	0.4	1.4	0.3	2.5	0.4	2.5	0.4	2.0	0.5	2.4	0.2	2.4c	0.2
Generalized Anxiety Disorder	3.0	0.6	1.5	0.3	1.0	0.3	2.8	0.6	3.0	0.5	2.2	0.3	0.9	0.2
Social phobia	11.2	0.7	7.0	0.5	7.7	0.6	9.7	0.7	10.1	1.0	9.1	0.4	1.3	0.2
Specific phobia	22.1	1.1	16.7	0.9	21.6	1.6	18.3	1.0	17.7	1.3	19.3	0.8	0.6	0.1
Panic disorder	2.6	0.3	2.0	0.3	1.8	0.4	2.3	0.3	3.3	0.7	2.3	0.2	2.3c	0.2
Post-traumatic stress disorder	8.0	0.7	2.3	0.4	3.7	0.5	5.1	0.5	7.0	0.8	5.0	0.3	1.5	0.2
Separation Anxiety disorder	9.0	0.6	6.3	0.5	7.8	0.6	8.0	0.7	6.7	0.8	7.6	0.3	0.6	0.1
Any anxiety disorder	38.0	1.4	26.1	0.8	31.4	1.9	32.1	1.0	32.3	1.7	31.9	0.8	8.3	0.4
Behavior disorders
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder	4.2	0.5	13.0	1.0	8.8	0.9	8.6	0.8	9.0	1.1	8.7	0.6	4.2	0.4
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)	11.3	0.9	13.9	1.2	12.0	1.2	12.6	1.3	13.6	1.4	12.6	0.9	6.5	0.7
Conduct disorder	5.8	1.1	7.9	1.2	4.4	1.2	7.5	1.2	9.6	1.3	6.8	0.9	2.2	0.4
Any behavior disorder	15.5	1.2	23.5	1.6	18.2	1.5	19.5	1.7	21.9	1.8	19.6	1.2	9.6	0.8
Substance use disorders
Alcohol abuse/dependence	5.8	0.5	7.0	0.6	1.3	0.3	6.5	0.6	14.5	1.2	6.4	0.4	—	—
Drug abuse/dependence	8.0	0.8	9.8	0.8	3.4	0.6	9.7	0.9	16.3	1.5	8.9	0.7	—	—
Any substance use disorder	10.2	0.9	12.5	0.8	3.7	0.6	12.2	0.9	22.3	1.6	11.4	0.7	—	—
Other
Eating disorders	3.8	0.4	1.5	0.3	2.4	0.4	2.8	0.3	3.0	0.4	2.7	0.2	—	—
Any Classb	51.0	1.4	48.1	1.6	45.3	2.1	49.3	1.9	56.7	2.7	49.5	1.2	22.2 d	1.0
1 class	30.3	1.3	30.3	1.3	31.2	1.8	29.4	1.4	30.4	2.3	30.3	0.9	16.2	0.6
2 classes	12.6	0.9	12.1	1.2	9.2	1.0	13.0	1.3	16.5	1.7	12.4	0.9	5.2	0.7
3–4 classes	8.1	1.1	5.7	0.6	5.0	1.1	6.9	0.9	9.9	1.3	6.9	0.7	0.8	0.2

or, coming back to our sermon, the pagans worry about all these things. Now, this morning I got the times wrong at Grace: I thought, like my usual church, they would be on student break times so turned up at 10 AM (the summer time) when the services were at 9:15 and 11:00. So we heard the second half of the sermon twice, and also got a walk in. During the walk I stopped at a local shop for a coffee. In the shop was a Maneki.

This idol is a Japanese charm for prosperity and good fortune: as many of the shopkeepers in NZ are Chinese the often have one of these displayed along with Taoist Gods of wealth, such as Cai Shen. The sons discussed this what this was why we were waiting for the service. One sees the same issues in many financial blogs — people worrying about the markets, and not teaching the principles: spend less than you earn, eat at home, get out and interact with others: do not neglect exercise; do not neglect prayer and the word of God.

Our feelings are ephemeral. We need to do our duty despite our feelings: which is another reason that the elite lie.

"Stop 'oppressing' me with your reason, logic & evidence-based observation, only MY emotions matter!" – the foundation of modern #feminism.

— Afternoon Tory (@AfternoonTory) April 25, 2014

But within the sermon we moved to another place. And that is to seek instead the Kingdom of God. Seek the important. Seek the eternal. The daily worries will be gone tomorrow and tomorrow will look after itself. Instead be dealing with the important.

Which includes remembering who our God is.

 1 PETER 1:3-9

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.⁶In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials,⁷so that the genuineness of your faith — being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.⁸Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,⁹for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.