Oklahomily - Sunday, January 1, 2006

By Dave Jones
As the final hours of 2005 tick down and 2006 arrives, it is my fervent wish - no, make it fervent prayer - that your new year bring you something that may have eluded you previously. Something vital; that is, something that restores life, joy and a sense of worth. It is an intangible in this world, a spiritual value for which many claim to aspire and few possess.

It is peace.

Peace is not something we experience a great deal. In this anxious, fearful world we are confronted daily, sometimes hourly, with the cares and concerns of the entire world. Perhaps more today than at any other time in history we have access to the data stream - we call it the "news" - of reports from across the globe, a never-ending 24/7 of mostly bad tidings.

Is there more bad news today than in the past?

Probably not. But there are more reporters in more places and a great deal more ways to transmit that bad news to you, and fast. Where news was once words and the occasional picture, now the bad news comes at you in living color, live via satellite or freshly edited videotape. The demand for instant news is great, or at least the operating theory is that fresher is better, so there is less time for third party editors to study the news, ask questions, or even understand what it is they are broadcasting or publishing.

For it is a competitive business and to compete successful must captivate viewers. It is not easy to capture an audience with the subtle nuances of Mideast diplomacy or why water treatment systems may be winning a war, or the true roots of famine in Africa. Those stories can be found in scholarly journals that are read by a select audience that will pay for them. What sells is sex and violence, and fear sells best of all.

Fear of war. Fear of destruction. Fear of disruption and inconvenience in life. Fear of rocking the boat. Fear of loss of freedom. Fear of the unknown.

If you can get people to worry about how a roadside bomb in Afghanistan might affect the price of coffee next Saturday in the local supermart, then you are a successful journalist. If you unnerve a sufficient number of people, you can alter markets. Witness the price of gasoline last fall as Katrina and then Rita hit the Gulf Coast. The futures market (comprised of experienced, savvy energy buyers and sellers) panicked itself into driving the future price of a barrel of crude to record heights. Bottom line: the people who act in the market are, after all, just people. They react just as you or I react when we are uncertain. They created a demand for a product based on a perceived possibility that supply would be scarce.

And millions of people paid $3-plus per gallon for a few weeks. Until the truth of the situation became apparent and the futures jitters settled.

This is just one example among thousands of individual reports and stories that are aimed, with negativity aforethought, straight at the hearts and minds of billions across the planet. The emotional impact on the average human heart is considerable, although repeated shocks dull the senses and lead one to become discouraged, saddened and afraid.

If this is not the plan of Satan, the prince of liars, and a deceiver from the beginning, then it is a devishly good imitation. It could not work better with his plans. And what are his plans, you might ask? Well, to obstruct and derail, as much as is in his power yet to do so, the Will of God and the salvation of humanity through Jesus.

But Jesus has a plan too. It involves total cooperation with the Divine Will of the Father and the working of the Holy Spirit. The plan of Jesus involves inviting us to partake of His peace.

Peace is not the absence of war, although that is certainly a good thing when it happens, which isn't often.