Anxious About Oxygen

 

“NASA reveals earth is running out of oxygen!”  The headline drew my attention.  This certainly sounded concerning.  Humans need oxygen to survive.  That's why people who submerge themselves too long under water, usually have an appointment with a mortician soon thereafter.

And now, I find out that the whole earth is running out of oxygen!  I must confess that I have worried about a number of things, but running out of oxygen had somehow not made the list.  Maybe it was time to add it.

Being the anxious sort of person that I am, I clicked on the article to “find out more.”   As I opened the webpage, I discovered that scientists had used computer models to predict when a “great de-oxygenation event” would transpire.

Of course, there are a number of different variables in play.  Still, these NASA folks are certain that 1 billion years from now, the oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere could drop to ten percent of what it is today.

I breathed an oxygen-rich sigh of relief.  1 billion years is a long time – not quite as long as my eldest daughter’s showers, but still long enough that I didn’t feel overly anxious about this coming crisis.

It is the way of things on the internet to make things sound as dramatic and devastating as possible.  That seems to be the best way to get anxious people like me to click on them.  A headline like “NASA scientists speculate that the earth could run out of oxygen in a billion years – give or take a million years or two,” is overly long nor does it inspire the reader with enough fear.  Ideally, for the purposes of headline writers, the world should end in a couple of years – long enough to let people worry about it, while not so long that people put it out of their minds as a problem for tomorrow’s children.

Jesus told His followers, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthew 6:34) Borrowing trouble from tomorrow isn’t helpful – particularly not trouble from a distant tomorrow a billion years from now.

It is hard not to worry.  Even if it doesn't do any good, borrowing trouble from the future is an easy endeavor, but one that only lowers our enjoyment of the present.  The vast majority of things we stress over aren't things we can change and still we fret over them, wondering which of our fears will come to pass.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that the solution was to trust our Heavenly Father.  He takes care of sparrows and flowers, surely, He will take care of His children who love Him.  More than that, we need to learn to live in the present.  Whether it is thinking about our six-year-old daughter's future husband or a "great de-oxygenation event," borrowing trouble from the future only steals the enjoyment we have from today and does little to change the chance of disaster happening down the road.