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[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Feeling fearful about Y2K?

By Michael Hyatt

This is a natural emotion when facing an uncertain future. I certainly face it from time to time, as do members of my family and many of my friends. I also receive scores of e-mail from people who do as well.

I'm not a psychologist, so I'm afraid I can't offer you much help in dealing with fear from that perspective. However, I can tell you how I am dealing with it personally. Whenever I feel fearful or anxious about the future, I remind myself of four things:

1. I am not facing the future alone. As we approach the millennial rollover, there is much that we don't know about the future. We still don't know whether or not Y2K will be a "speed bump" or a "train wreck." But, as a Christian, the one thing I know for absolute certain is the fact that "God is with us" (Isaiah 8:10) and that "He will never leave us nor forsake us" (Hebrews 13:5). I may not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.

2. Not all fear is bad. Fear can be a God-given, built-in mechanism for insuring that we get out of harm's way. The kind of fear that motivates a person to take action -- locking the doors at night, looking both ways before crossing traffic, or fleeing from a would-be attacker -- is healthy. Conversely, any emotion that leads to denial, feelings of helplessness, or procrastination is not productive.

3. Taking action dissipates fear. The Apostle Paul says that "God has not given us a spirit of fear" (2 Timothy 1:7). In the Greek, the word used for "fear" means timidity. The opposite of this is boldness. The timid person is the one who is afraid to act. Caught "between and betwixt," he hesitates, unable to take action. In any crisis -- a war, a natural disaster, an economic downturn, or any other calamity -- it is these people who suffer the most. Those who act, on the other hand, are the ones who remain calm, rising above their circumstances, and getting safely from one side of the crisis to the other. To put it another way, preparation is the antidote to panic.

4. You can only do so much. To quote A.L. Williams, "when all you can do is all you can do then all you can do is enough." When the disciples were faced with feeding a multitude of 5,000 hungry people, they initially dismissed the task as impossible. But Jesus didn't let them off the hook. He asked them to take inventory of their resources, and they found that they only had five loaves of bread and two fish -- hardly enough to meet the needs of the assembled crowd. But Jesus took the disciples' meager resources, blessed them, and gave them back to distribute to the people. Amazingly, they all ate and were filled. There were even twelve baskets left over (see Luke 9:12-17)! The message for us in regard to Y2K is obvious: If we will take whatever resources we have, whether small or great, and offer them up to the Lord, asking for his blessing, we will discover that we have more than enough to meet our needs. I think God often puts us -- as he did the disciples -- in a position where we are unable to meet all of our own needs, so that we may learn to trust in him.

I don't know where you are in your spiritual journey, but if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, let me encourage you to start there. He is the one who is able to calm the waters and bring you safely through the storm. He's done it for countless others, and He can do it for you.

URL:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_hyatt/19991216_xcmhy_feeling_fe.shtml

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-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 19, 1999

Answers

I'm not gonna touch it....

-- pops (pop@poppin.fresh), December 19, 1999.

Right on, Michael! I couldn't agree more! God bless you and Merry Christmas.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), December 19, 1999.

To mike Hyatt, you have my vote for God's Salt and light award for your love of our community, That's for all you have done, your book is well done. If any body out there is late comming to awareness and preparedness get his book it will save you time and money,and help you use what little time we have left before the cdc to prepare. God's word is truly the best way of dealing with adversity and fear. God does not give us the spirit of fear but of power love and a sound mind. It is of that sound mind that after looking at all the evidence, Senate Hearings of top experts, expert technical white papers, well researched and documented evidence of y2k problems done by IEEE, mitre,Naval war college, Paula Gordon,Cory,Gary north,and you that we can feel confident preparing for y2k disruptions are the only sound way to go.

It is no mistake to error on the side of caution when dealing with the safety of ones family and community.

y2k 747 anology. Would you go flying if you knew one of the engines of your 747 were broken you wouldnt take that flight would you. Y2k preparedness is the same, we know one of the engines is not going to work. What we dont know is if any of the others have that problem even though we have been assured they have been checked. We are assured that the plane can easily fly on the three engines but what if their accessment is wrong what if the plane loses another engine can it still fly safely? So it is with society right now. To say that y2k is all fixed and not prepare is like taking that plane that has one known bad engine and not truly knowing the status of the other three. I and my family wont take that flight of unpreparedness and neither should you or your family.

If y2k is only a bump in the road it is bcause of the people like Mike and gary and the masses of techinicans, engineers and managers that took y2k serious enough to make people alert to take the right corrective actions, If y2k is the end of the world as we know it, it will be because of a failed political leadership policy that prevented adaquate preparedness by our nation in time.

Thank's for trying Mike Hyatt, Gary North, Ed and Jennifer Yourdon, Paula Gordon, Jim Lord, Cory, Paul Milne,sally y2k Kitchen and karen Anderson of y2k women and others who cared enough to stand up for our nation and sound the alarm and diligently lead people to prepare. May God shine extra favor and blessings this Christmas and help you and your families to have safe passage thru our coming year. God bless you and have a great and wonderful Christmas knowning that your efforts and love will most likely help 100's of thousands to survive if y2k goes 10 next year, Thanks for your caring and love. The remnent will remember who stood up and cared and shared. y2k aware mike.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @conservation .com), December 19, 1999.