It’s easy to get discouraged over things in the world. There’s a lot of crud going on and the problem of 24/7 news access is that it amplifies our perception that things are bad.

(I’m a little bit of an oddball: I am long term very optimistic, and even fairly optimistic short term about how the world is going to turn out. But I’ll cheerfully acknowledge that pessimism is rampant. This is for those people. The rest of you can leave. Come back tomorrow).

I read a maxim a while back that has struck with me: if there is no solution, there is no problem.

In other words: if there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do about a matter then it’s not your problem, and you should mentally leave it alone. An election didn’t turn out as you wish? A possible war in the making? A drought in South America? You can’t do anything about them. Stop pretending you can, and conquer problems that you CAN do something about.

I’m even going to include praying about these things. I hate to tell people not to pray but most of us have full plates already. Lots of folks are going to pray about these “big” issues. Very few, on the other hand, are praying for your kid’s teacher or the lady down the street who lost her job, or a man at church having surgery. For most of us, THOSE are the important issues. We need to make sure we’re praying for them.

I’ve mentioned before that most of us have three or four dominant responsibilities in our lives. In a theological sense, we’re talking vocation. And that’s not just “vocation” in the sense of your job, although for most of us, our job is one of those biggies. But it usually includes our family, our work, church responsibilities, stuff like that.

Martin Luther’s wife Katie once challenged Luther. He was acting all doom and gloom about something, and Katie pointed out that God hadn’t died, and for him to stop acting like it. That’s an accurate assessment. God hasn’t died, much less died and left you in charge. Stop fretting over the world, and start acting in YOUR world. Do it now, and your life will be better