It may feel like we collectively, and you, specifically, are in a bad way – but it’s not all that bad.

“Tony,” you say, “you gotta be kidding me.”

It’s true, though. It’s not all that bad. I’ve had a little epiphany, courtesy of a federal judge and Yale law professor named Guido Calabresi. 

You can check him out, but I want to share a little parable that he’s been telling law students for decades. It’s paraphrased, but you’ll get the gist of it, and you’ll realize it’s not all that bad.

Calabresi asks students to imagine what it’d be like if a god came to earth and offered all society an invention that would forever change and improve daily life. It would allow folks to spend more time with friends and family, see new places, experience new things. There would be, however, a high cost. If the god bestowed this invention on us, then he would also choose 1000 young men and women and strike them dead.

So, would you take the god up on this deal? Calabresi’s students would invariably say NO. Then Calabresi would deliver the zinger: “What’s the difference between this and the automobile?”

You can check the stats for yourself, but cars kill far more than 1000 people a year. In the United States, it’s about 40,000 annually. And we generally don’t give that a thought. Car accidents have always been a part of our lives. Chances are you’ve been in one or at least know folks who have been. In spite of this, we believe that cars are not all that bad.

You may be way ahead of me by now, but the point is clear: We, as humans, can be irrational about risk.

Think about it. There are things that are risky, for sure. Driving is one thing. Pollution is bad. We don’t think about that.

What we do latch onto, though, are those random and highly unlikely things. I, for one, am not a great flyer. Plane crashes bother me. The odds, though, are incredibly low that I’ll die in an airplane incident.

Other things that terrify folks might include shark attacks, getting struck by lightning, or getting kicked in the head by a mule. Or, even, dying from COVID-19. You may get it (I did), but the odds of you dying from it are almost negligible.

The companion terror to that recently has been the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. I’m not of a mind today to get in a vaccine debate … my counsel all along has been to talk to your personal physician and do what he or she recommends. They most likely know more than you do. Don’t let your Google search trump their medical degree.

Regarding Johnson and Johnson – at this writing, six women have developed rare blood clots within three weeks after receiving it, and one of them died. About 6.8 million had received the vaccine by then. Again, just playing the numbers, the odds of getting blood clots from J&J is less than one in a million.

So why do we let such minuscule things like this bother us, when it’s not all that bad?

Part of it, these days, is because so much new is coming at us. In the early days of the pandemic, we were all like deer in the headlights – as in, “What the heck is happening here?”

The media, of course, contributes to our fear. I call it “Pandemic Porn” – it’s like the news is tailored to get some sort of weird backward negative thrill from us. It’s always “look how bad things are!” And, of course, shark attacks are newsworthy, and video footage finds itself in an endless social loop.

Don’t hate, and don’t judge, but I’m persuaded that COVID is curable, because the vaccines seem to have nearly eliminated death, hospitalization, and other connected illnesses. You may disagree, but remember – my experts can beat up your experts.

Still, one thing we can agree on is that for many people, vaccinated and otherwise, there is a lingering obsession over the risks of COVID. And this blog isn’t all about COVID – it’s more about our skewed worldview, brought on by a host of factors, that leads people to think things are eternally awful. But things simply aren’t all that bad.

I can state that with confidence. Know why?

It’s because I embrace the fact of the bigness and sovereignty of God.

Here’s a little exercise: Grab a piece of paper and a pen. Make a list of everything that is out of God’s control.

Be honest. There isn’t a list to be made. Because (drum roll) there is nothing outside of God’s control.

Problem is, we act like there might be some random renegade molecule out there in creation that God doesn’t control, and that one little thing can absolutely destroy the right and righteous order of things.

You know that’s not so. Nothing happens randomly. Either God wills it or He allows it. Either way, He calls the shots.

That may be why some people reject God entirely. They don’t like to think there is a genuine Supreme Being Who is sovereign over everything. Sovereign over you, your friends and family, over all governments, over all illnesses, over it all.

It stands to spiritual reason, then, that if God is indeed sovereign, then we can face life fearlessly. Because things aren’t all that bad.

Oh, sure, with our finite human eyes, things look bad. By human standards, there are plenty of things that are bad. Cancer is bad. Poverty is bad. Racism is bad. The list goes on.

But, against the backdrop of eternity, things aren’t that bad. I am a stranger here. A pilgrim and a sojourner. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

Believer, we need to embrace the truth of that last sentence. Once we genuinely understand that, duh, God’s got this, then we can relax. He knows what He’s doing. He’s God, and He’s been at this a long time.

I don’t want to make light of the struggles you’re facing. We all struggle. What I do want to leave you with, though, is the secure knowledge that God knows what you’re facing, you are prone to irrational fears, and He understands you much better than you understand yourself. And He’s walking beside you 24/7/365.

Be well.