I’ve been following the Ebola saga, as I’m sure most Americans are. We’re not used to the idea that a killer disease might find its way over here. We expect such things to happen in some other part of the world while we sit safe and protected. Now we have to reconsider our expectations.
I’m no alarmist when it comes to the Ebola scare. I’m not yet convinced we’re going to be overwhelmed by it. Yet the government’s attempts to calm our fears have been something less than comforting:
And being assured by President Obama doesn’t ease our rising fears. We know how he wages war against threats to our national security. His track record makes one doubt anything he says:
It’s not just him; it’s the entire inefficient government bureaucracy we must contend with:
So what are we doing to ensure people who are infected with Ebola don’t enter the country? We’re taking their temperatures and asking them whether they are sick. I’m underwhelmed. We’re also trusting the governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone to do the job when they get on a plane coming to America. People who know they are infected can use artificial means to lower their temperature before boarding, and what makes us think such probing questions as “Are you sick?” will be answered truthfully?
Then we have to trust the TSA at our end. That’s asking for an amount of faith most of us probably don’t have.
Yesterday, the man from Liberia who entered with Ebola died in a Dallas hospital. Now we’re told one of the policemen who entered his apartment has been admitted with Ebola-like symptoms. Did he really come into contact with the man’s “bodily fluids” or is this something that can be spread through the air? Medical authorities are now admitting they don’t yet know enough about how this is transmitted to say with certainty that it can’t be spread that way.
One thing we all long for—a government we can trust.
Our best defense, though, is what it always has been: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” If the coming of Ebola can make droves of Americans rethink their spiritual condition, face up to their mortality, and come to the Cross in humility and repentance, good can still come from this for eternity.