SEE THAT YOU BE NOT TROUBLED...

 By Chris Cumming

We surely live in the information age. The average North American, European and Australian citizen is barraged by 24-hour a day news coverage. The Internet puts us in touch with thousands of news sources from around the world. News events even fill our everyday conversations at work and in the home. Hardly a day goes by without us hearing of wars, civil unrest, terrorist bombings and death on an ever-increasing scale. All these elements can easily trigger intense feelings of stress, fear and uncertainty. In times past, these events seemed so far away, but now they appear to be creeping ever closer to our own country, state and to our very front doors. Add to this the confusion so many have in attempting to sort out this avalanche of news and spare us from information overload.

 The purpose of this article is two fold. First, I will give you a streamlined list of resources for extracting the news you need to see. Second, I will provide you with some basic strategies to overcoming and alleviating the stress, anxiety and worry we experience in seeing where the world is surely heading in the coming months and years.

Coping with Information Overload

As we are going to see in part two of this article, experts encourage us to limit ourselves to just how much information we take in. The goal is to get quickly to what we need and then to avoid those sources offering a constant stream of world and national news. If you are a fan of one of the 24-hour-a-day cable news networks, such as Fox News, CNN or MSNBC, restrict your viewing to specific and shortened periods during the day. You might wish to choose just one or two specific time slots or limit yourself to particular news programs or commentators.

At our main web site for the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association ( http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/), we do much of this news-intake streamlining for you: We scan scores of news sources each day to bring you the most pertinent stories. We offer three full-text news stories in Breaking News and just five Headline News events where we give you the opening paragraph and then a link to the rest of the story at its source. We update the news Monday through Friday. The primary purpose of these posted stories is to present the news in light of Bible prophecy.

In keeping with this purpose, we offer other news pages on specific themes as follows:

End Time News: http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/endtime.shtml

United Europe: http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/useurope.shtml

Two Key Prophecies: http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/twokey.shtml

In Two Key Prophecies we post stories regarding two key events Mr. Armstrong has encouraged us to watch for, which will herald the end of this age, as we know it. Those two key events are the construction of a temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the surrounding of this city with armies just before its destruction. In the “End Time News” section we offer a ‘headline only’ archive of the stories we have posted in recent weeks. The reader gets an overview of these world events without having to wade through countless stories (http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/endtimeheadlines.shtml)

For those who wish to streamline their own news sources, we offer a section on both “News Sources” and “End Time News” sources (http://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/newslink.shtml and www.garnertedarm strong.org//endtime sources.shtml respectively).

An example of one streamlined list of news sources, using the Internet, would be:

U.S. News: WorldNetDaily: www.worldnetdaily.com or

CNN: www.cnn.com/US/index.html

Europe: EU Observer: www.euobserver.com

Israel: Israel National News:  www.israelnationalnews.com

Middle East: Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/mideast/

This process works the same way if your primary news sources are radio, television and printed media (magazines and newspapers). Choose a limited number of sources and control the amount of time you devote to the ingestion of the news.

The key to coping with information overload is to restrict and control both your number of sources and the time you allot to this activity.

Coping with The Stress, Anxiety and Uncertainty Triggered by World Events

More and more these days, I receive e-mails from individuals shocked and concerned by what is happening in this world today. The events of 9/11 and since have taught us that strife, war and turmoil are not things happening in far-away countries, but right here in our own backyard as it were. We now have a Department of Homeland Security and are being provided with crucial information on how to survive a chemical or biological attack in our own neighborhood. It has lent a whole new meaning to the phrase, “living on the edge.” Experts report most every day that this trend will get much worse before it gets any better. I just went to the Internet and within five minutes found these news headlines, which will give you a feel for what we are talking about here:

U.S. warns imminent attack may target airliners, ships

U.S. to put rail system on heightened terror alert

France Raises Its Terror Alert

Worldwide terror alert sparked (by train bombings in Madrid)

Pope County (Arkansas) First Responders Ready for Terror Attack

Al Qaeda Claims to Have Nukes

Is it any wonder that our levels of stress, worry and fear continue to climb? What can we do, individually, to cope with these events and realities and find peace and perspective in our lives? ABC News (online) is currently running an article in their Health Section entitled, “Coping With War” by Amanda Gardner. In it, she offers, “Guidelines for Coping.” I will excerpt these here with some minor edits...

For the “average” person, the stress could manifest itself in headaches, backaches, upset stomach, anxiety, colds, difficulty focusing or concentrating, changes in appetite, increased irritability and fatigue.

“It’s all predicated on how one interprets or perceives or thinks about what's put before them," says Joshua Klapow, an associate professor of psychology and health care organization and policy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “We're going to have varying levels of stress and anxiety, which means people are going to have to do different things to cope successfully.”

Even though everyone has his own individual way of coping, there are some basic guidelines that won't hurt - and could even help - in these stressful times:

1 ] Pay attention to your physical well-being. Klapow advises that means getting enough sleep; eating properly and doing what you can to boost your immunity. Exercise and relaxation techniques such as meditation, prayer, or diaphragmatic breathing can be particularly helpful.

2] Stick to your usual routine as much as possible. “To combat distress, we have to try to keep the environment as normal as it has been, because it decreases cues to the brain of the stressful situation,” Klapow says.

3] Keep busy and distract yourself. “Make yourself preoccupied and occupied all the time but not with war news,” Hilfer advises. “If you think about this all of the time and you're particularly vulnerable, you'll make a mess out of yourself.”

4] Seek out family and friends. But bear in mind that different people will have different preferences for “war talk.”

5] Limit - but don't eliminate information from the war (and other news events). “People don't need to be informed every minute of the day “ Hilfer cautions. “They need to be able to take breaks, dose out other news a little more judiciously in their lives. Listen every now and then but don't be addicted to it.”

6] Realize that even if you “successfully” cope, you may not feel good. “This stressful time is not necessarily going to feel good even if you do all the things you can do to manage stress,” Klapow says. “It's not going to make it go away. It's going to increase your chances of building resilience and living through this.” -end of excerpt

Jesus Christ spoke of these days in His time after he was specifically asked by the disciples what would be the sign of His coming and the end of this age (Matthew 24:3). He states in verse six that we will hear about wars and rumors of wars and then says “see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass.” In 1 Peter we read, “.For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled” (1 Peter 3:12-14).

I took a moment to refer to my dictionary and the word “cope.” As a definition it offers, “To contend with difficulties and act to overcome them.” This is our encouragement to you. The world faces a future fraught with difficulties. Take action yourself to face them and overcome them. Remember the words of the apostle Paul:

“Therefore; my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).