Some people like to work in “emergency mode”. They feel like it makes them more productive, with adrenalin flowing to make them act quicker and work harder. Leaders will often declare and maintain a “state of emergency” to keep their followers under high-alert and provide what they feel is a necessary impetus to higher performance.

But here’s the problem—people get used to that state, to the point where that feels normal to them. If they haven’t already crashed and burned from too much hyper-adrenalin-flow for too long, their brains will protect them from this by pulling back from emergency mode in order to conserve energy and function properly over the long haul.

In other words, emergencies, by definition, are short-term, and highly unusual. If they continue, we call that “daily life”.  What happens when we call everything “an emergency”? We won’t be able to recognize a real emergency when it comes. It’s like screaming “Fire! Fire!” everywhere, until we (and others) don’t know where the real fire is and may not even care anymore.

Don’t let that happen. Keep a state of emergency for emergencies only. Otherwise, that sense of emergency will become the new normal in your mind and heart. In other words, don’t use a fire engine to drive to work every day.

How do we tell the difference between an emergency and something that just needs to be taken care of?

1. Urgency—how quickly do we need to take care of it? Is it a time bomb with a five-minute fuse and four minutes have already passed? Is it something someone wants done “yesterday”? Is it guests are coming over in half an hour and we still haven’t cleaned the house? Or is it something that can wait until tomorrow? How soon do we need our computer to work?

2. Significance—how much does it matter? What kind of destruction will occur if we don’t take care of it? Is it really a “matter of life and death”? What’s at risk? What’s on the line? Our job, health, reputation, relationship? Who’s involved, and who needs us to act? How will it impact our wellbeing and that of those we care about if left undone? What’s the worst that could happen? Where does it fall on the spectrum between “It could cause minor discomfort” to “lives are at stake here”? Why do we need our computer to work and who’s asking for it to?

3. Scope— How much potential loss, and how many people will it affect? How widespread is the issue? Does this affect only ourselves, or our family, or our team, our organization, our city, our nation, the entire world? If it’s not dealt with, how many people will suffer harm, and how much harm? Are we needing to stop someone shooting a bee-bee gun from putting a dent in our tree, or are we needing to stop someone from putting harmful chemicals into our water supply? (Most things will be somewhere in between) How many people will lose out or get angry if our computer doesn’t work?

Now put this all together. If there’s a time bomb about to go off, and that bomb is extremely powerful, and we, our family, and a highly populated city are about to get blown up, that’s an emergency. If that “bomb” is just a stink-bomb, set to go off tomorrow, in the middle of a large field, it doesn’t need our immediate attention or adrenaline-flow.

As frustrating as it is to go an “Emergency Room” and wait for hours to get help, it happens because hospitals with limited staff and space are making these kinds of decisions constantly. If the president of the U.S. has a heart attack, he gets “first dibs” on the ambulance and medical personnel. If a bomb has exploded in a war zone and a lot of people are injured, all military medical resources will be deployed to the scene. If we cut our finger and it’s bleeding but not in danger of being lost, don’t go to the ER— we may bleed out waiting there! Better to just clean it and put a band-aid on it.

In a sense, we need to treat our minds and hearts like Emergency Rooms, knowing we only have so many “ambulances”, “medical personnel”, and a finite amount of time to take care of things. Everything can’t be an “emergency”, or nothing will be. Some things have to wait.

Thankfully, we don’t have to take care of things by ourselves. Those of us who know the Lord have the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, always-loving, One at the ready to take care of any emergency we face.

To our ever-in-control, Lord, no emergency is too big or too small for Him to handle or be willing to handle for us. He’s there, with and for us, able and willing to help. We only need to ask.

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea”. Ps. 46:1-2

“’Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” Is. 41:10

Jn. 16:33 –“In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Then let Him sort out the real emergencies from stuff that just needs to be taken care of without so much urgency or adrenalin. He even takes care of the non-emergencies, just because He cares about us and our wellbeing. He’s our Dad, the Great Physician, the Big Boss, and all things good and needed!

Whatever we encounter, emergency or not, we’ll stay a lot calmer knowing, remembering, and meditating on this, to the point where a lot less will even feel like an emergency.