The World and Everything in It - May 17, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Parents of babies are scrambling to find baby formula. We’ll tell you why and what you can do.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also what’s going on with the COVID variant circulating right now.

Plus a story about mercy.

And WORLD commentator Whitney Williams on the Word of God and night vision.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, May 17th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Here’s Kent Covington now with the news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Turkey objects to Finland, Sweden joining NATO » Sweden has decided to join neighboring Finland in seeking to join the Western NATO alliance, though there’s now reason to doubt whether they will be allowed to join.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said Monday the Swedish Parliament debated the issue.

ANDERSSON: After the debate, the government of Sweden formally decided to apply for NATO membership.

But there’s a problem. Russia isn’t the only country that doesn’t want Finland or Sweden to join NATO. Turkey says it also objects.

That’s important because Turkey is a part of NATO. And to admit a new member into the alliance, existing members have to unanimously agree.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the countries of failing to take a “clear” stance against Kurdish militants and other groups that his country considers to be terrorists and of imposing military sanctions on Turkey.

But all other members are on board, including the United States . Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell assured Finnish leaders of that during a visit to Finland on Monday.

MCCONNELL: I’m safe in saying there is strong bipartisan support in the United States for admission of Finland to the world’s most successful military alliance.

The same goes for Sweden.

But with possible delays caused by Turkey’s objection, Magdalena Andersson warned Sweden would be in a “vulnerable position” during the application period. She said Russia could launch “disinfaiormation” campaigns within Sweden and attempt to—quote—“intimidate and divide us.”

McDonald’s selling Russian restaurants » Meantime in Russia, a sad sign of the times. McDonald’s is selling its restaurants in the country. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Thirty-two years ago, the arrival of McDonald’s in Russia ushered in a new era in the former Soviet Union. It was a symbol of freedom and Western capitalism.

AUDIO: Today we are opening the first McDonald’s in Moscow (cheers)

When the first location opened in Moscow, customers formed lines as long as four football fields … as police stood by to prevent a riot.

The company now has 850 restaurants in the country, employing more than 60,000 people.

But with no end in sight to Russia’s violent invasion of Ukraine, McDonald’s is pulling out.

The company said “we have a commitment to our global community and must remain steadfast in our values.”

McDonald’s says it plans to start removing its golden arches and other symbols and is working to sell all of its Russian restaurants.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Gas prices again crest record highs » Gas prices have hit another record high. The national average for regular unleaded is $4.48 per gallon. Prices are also hitting truckers hard. The average for diesel is $5.56 per gallon, which further fuels inflation on anything trucked around the country.

President Biden told reporters …

BIDEN: They’re high for two reasons: One was COVID, and now, the second big reason is Vladimir Putin.

Republicans point to Biden policies like shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline and a move last week when his administration canceled a 1-million acre oil lease in Alaska. The Department of the Interior said that was due to a “lack of interest in leasing in the area.”

The department said it also would not move forward with two oil lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.

Five states hold primary elections » Voters in five states will decide more than a dozen different primary races today. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has that story.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: They’ll head to the polls in Idaho, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Oregon.

Pennsylvania voters will pick candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.

The GOP Senate primary race is a tight one. Trump endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz for the open seat, but polls indicate he’s locked in a three-way tie with former hedge fund CEO David McCormick and political commentator Kathy Barnette.

The Democratic frontrunner in the Pennsylvania Senate primary, John Fetterman, suffered a stroke over the weekend. But he is doing well and plans to rejoin the campaign trail soon.

In Idaho, Republican Gov. Brad Little is running against his Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor who banned mask mandates last year when Little was out of the state on business.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Authorities: Gunman in Calif. church attack motivated by hate for Taiwanese people » Police say the gunman who opened fire inside a Southern California church on Sunday was a Chinese immigrant motivated by hate for Taiwanese people.

The shooter killed one person and wounded five others during a lunch held by Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods.

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes told reporters:

BARNES: Based on preliminary information in the investigation, it is believed the suspect involved was upset about political tensions between China and Taiwan.

The suspect was identified as 68-year-old David Chou of Las Vegas. He is is behind bars on murder and attempted murder charges. He is expected to appear in court today.

Federal authorities are also investigating the incident as a hate crime.

Police seized multiple weapons and ammunition at the scene along with Molotov cocktail-like devices

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the search for baby formula.

Plus, recognizing what we cannot see.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 17th of May, 2022.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Before we get rolling here, Nick, great news from one of our longtime donors who’s laying down a challenge this week only to help motivate people to give for the first time in support of this program.

EICHER: Right, offering a match, but only for this week, to double the impact of your first gift.

It’s not a set amount, you know, we’ve done that in the past where a donor will match up to a certain amount, but this match is different. It’s for a set amount of time: So today, tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, all first-time gifts are doubled.

If you give $50, it’s matched and becomes $100, so maybe you’re on the fence and you need just one more good reason, maybe this will be the added motivation you need.

REICHARD: What a deal! Just a nudge, a competitive tripwire for the driven let’s say! What you need to do is go to WNG.org/newdonor so that your gift qualifies for the match!

EICHER: And that is what powers our journalism here at WORLD, support from listeners and readers and viewers, so we can be here every day with news from a Biblical worldview perspective. May is our month for new donors and we encourage you to take advantage of this week’s matching offer. WNG.org/newdonor.

REICHARD: Alright. Well, first up on The WORLD and Everything in It: the shortage of baby formula.

Four out of 5 babies begin life breastfeeding. But by six months, three-quarters of that group need at least some formula.

That means millions of American families are feeling the pinch of an ongoing shortage. WORLD Special Correspondent Sarah Schweinsberg reports on what is behind the problem and how families can cope.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG: Alissa Rice is a young, new mom.

RICE: I am 24 years old and I'm from Manson, Iowa. My baby was born in December, December 8th.

Rice started out breastfeeding her daughter, Willow. But it didn’t go very well. Willow would still cry after her feedings.

RICE:. So once we switched to formula, she was way happier. So I thought that was the best route to go.

Rice began using the formula brand, Similac. But then in February, the formula’s parent company, Abbot, had to recall Similac along with two other brands it makes. That after a cluster of babies became sick from contaminated formula. Two babies died.

RICE: So then, I was scared and I didn't want to use that brand anymore.

So Rice found a new formula for her daughter. But that didn’t last long either.

RICE: One day I walked into the store and there was literally nothing on the shelves.

Rice isn’t the only parent facing severely limited formula options. Retail pricing data website, Datasembly, tracks formula products at more than 11,000 stores. The company found that 43 percent of the top-selling formula products in the country were out of stock as of May 8th.

In Iowa, where Rice lives, more than half of formula brands are out of stock.

Brad Taylor is a nutrition and dietetics professor at Brigham Young University, but he spent most of his career researching and creating infant formulas. He says today’s drastic shortage has been building for a while.

First, pandemic restrictions and lockdowns slowed down formula production.

TAYLOR: We heard a lot about the meatpacking industry and other segments that were facing challenges related to labor and COVID…the dairy sector, and then all the way up to premium nutritional products, including infant formula, certainly faced similar challenges.

Then a series of events earlier this year further tightened supply: the Abbot recall in February along with global supply chain problems caused by labor shortages and war.

TAYLOR: Over 80 percent of the sunflower oil, which is a very, very common ingredient in infant formula, is traditionally sourced from Ukraine.

And it is not easy for manufacturers to simply swap in new ingredients. The Food and Drug Administration treats formulas like pharmaceutical drugs, so any changes must be FDA approved. That means stores also can’t import formulas from foreign manufacturers.

And parents facing shortages can’t simply make their own formula with powdered milks at home. Babies might get enough calories that way, but they would miss out on critical nutrients.

TAYLOR: You'll find that infant formula is one that contains many components going down to trace minerals, and even what we call ultra trace minerals… there's over 29 regulated attributes that you could say are part of the nutritional profile of a given infant formula.

As shortages drag on, some stores like Target and Walgreens have started limiting how much formula parents can buy. Taylor says it’s not clear whether that policy actually helps or hurts more.

TAYLOR: Does that exacerbate the problem and drive more fear…Or does it actually help in terms of distributing among those who need it?

In the meantime, manufacturers say they are doing their best to ramp up production. And the FDA says it’s trying to help by speeding up its regulatory process as well as allowing the shutdown Abbot formula plant to reopen in two weeks.

And the agency announced on Friday that it will also allow imports of baby formula from European factories.

Bridget Young is a pediatrics professor at the University of Rochester. She helps parents pick the best formula for their babies. She says while parents wait for a specific formula to come back in stock, it is possible for many babies to switch back and forth between available brands. The trick is to match a few key ingredients.

YOUNG: We just want to focus on those first couple of ingredients that make up 98 percent of your formula. And if you can only match one thing, match the protein source because protein is by far the most likely thing that causes a baby to have an issue with their formula.

Most formulas are made from dehydrated cow’s milk. Within cow’s milk there are two types of proteins: whey proteins and casein proteins. Match the ratios of these proteins as close as possible between formulas.

Young says another key element to check is how the proteins have been broken up into bigger or smaller molecules.

YOUNG: If your baby's on one of those formulas that we refer to as partially hydrolyzed it just means the proteins have been broken up into smaller pieces that are more in line with the size of breast milk proteins…So you want to find another formula that also has the words partially hydrolyzed... following those rules and really matching the major ingredients, your baby really should transition well.

Parents can also rely on their network of friends and family. When Alissa Rice could not find her daughter’s formula, she posted on Facebook. Friends and family in neighboring cities and states began looking for it. Now, she’s had people mail formula and even deliver it to her house.

That, she says, brings her a lot of comfort during a stressful time.

RICE: For a while I was super scared. But now I feel like we have a lot of people in our corner and if they do see this kind they will pick it up for us. So that makes me very thankful.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next: the COVID-19 subvariant helping to drive an uptick in new cases.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It doesn’t have the catchiest name: BA.2.12.1. That’s what scientists are calling the latest omicron subvariant now set to become the dominant strain in the United States.

COVID cases have been on a steady rise since about the first of April. Hospitalizations are also up a bit. The good news is that deaths continue to decline.

EICHER: Will that remain the case? And could this subvariant—or another—again disrupt American lives that have mostly returned to normal?

Here to help us answer those questions and others is Zach Jenkins. He’s a pharmacist who specializes in infectious diseases.

REICHARD: Good morning, Zach!

ZACH JENKINS, GUEST: Good morning.

REICHARD: Well, this subvariant—we’ll just call it BA212— is not the first spinoff from omicron is it? This is a subvariant of a subvariant. Do I have that right?

JENKINS: You do have that right and this is where it gets pretty complicated. A lot of the virologists out there tend to drive people in my world of infectious disease a little crazy sometimes with all these different naming schemes that are out there. The big thing that we're seeing here, though, these are slight modifications to existing variants. That's the way to think about these. Once you deviate really far, that's when they actually will kind of title it with a new variant name.

REICHARD: And how does this latest subvariant differ, if at all, from earlier strains in terms of symptoms? What symptoms should you look for with this variant?

JENKINS: It’s really similar to Omicron in general, as far as how it presents with people. What you'll see is more upper respiratory infections. So that's the contrast, that kind of presentation with the earlier strains of COVID, which tended to manifest more in the lower bases of the lungs and cause more pneumonias. So what you see in these cases, especially early on, are runny nose, sore throat, and sneezing, which, unfortunately, if you think about the time of the year that we're in, we see a lot of that with pollen. We see a lot of that, even with the flu right now, actually. Flu is happening around the country a little bit out of season. So it's kind of throwing off our efforts to try to diagnose and triage people.

REICHARD: BA212 looks to be about 30 percent more infectious than the last subvariant did, according to reports. But again, deaths are not up. In fact, they’ve continued to decline. So can we deduce that the subvariant is less virulent? Less dangerous?

JENKINS: So I think it's important to probably differentiate between severity of illness and virulence. So, virulence we typically think of as almost viral fitness. So when something's more virulent, it means it's going to spread faster, and be more effective at surviving in the elements in the world. In contrast, what you kind of see with severity is when you have a more severe virus, it tends to fizzle out. So in those particular instances, you actually have things that become very deadly, not really transmit very far. We saw that pretty early on with early strains of COVID. But now we're dealing with things that are spreading more rapidly, so they're better as far as viruses go. The downside is, as things change, there's always this possibility that we could have situations where some of our immunity or some of our therapeutics that we have may not work as effectively.

REICHARD: Professor, some experts say we’re seeing a familiar pattern here, that as viruses continue to mutate, they often become more contagious but less virulent. Is that typical? And is that what we’re seeing here?

JENKINS: I think absolutely, that's the pattern that we're following. This is becoming more contagious. The biggest hiccup I would say in all of this is unlike what you might see normally with the flu, where the previous generation sort of informs the next generation to come. With COVID We actually have a couple of major lineages that we've dealt with. Delta is actually a very different offshoot than what we're seeing with Omicron. So our hope would be we see this progression where it spreads more rapidly and causes less and less severe illness. And while that trajectory is heading that direction, there's always this possibility, though, that you could have something else kind of spiral out and present something a little bit more severe.

REICHARD: How much protection do the Covid shots and boosters provide against this subvariant?

JENKINS: So that's a great question. What we do know based on the data that we have thus far is natural exposure, natural infection tends to actually last somewhere about a year and most people before we see antibodies decline. And then when you see that in comparison with the vaccinations, at least a two shot regimen tends to last about six months before declined. So natural immunity might be a little bit more favorable in some instances. However, the best immunity seems to be when you combine the two. That actually supersedes both in length. That being said, there's going to be some breakthrough infection you're going to see at some point. There have been reports of this happening in both cases—with natural infection and with vaccinations. I think the big difference here is that severity of illness protection still remains. So you may have symptomatic cases, but they won't necessarily be as severe.

REICHARD: What do we know about this subvariant in other countries?

JENKINS: So, South Africa is probably one of the best places to look at. They've actually dealt with a lot of the various Omicron variants. The two that they're currently dealing with are actually not the one that we're projecting maybe the dominant one in the U.S. They're dealing with ba4 and ba5, and they're actually seeing cases skyrocket in relation to those. We do have those present in the U.S. right now. They really don't have much of a foothold, though, at least based on our current data. Looking at South Africa, broadly though, we do know that while hospitalizations are maybe rising and cases certainly are rising, deaths are still decoupled from that. And what that means is deaths have remained relatively low compared to other waves of the coronavirus that we've dealt with.

REICHARD: We can’t ask you to predict the future, but do you think the days of our lives being turned upside down by COVID are at least probably behind us for the foreseeable future?

JENKINS: At least with the current iteration of the virus that we're dealing with the U.S., I would say yes. It was always a balance between short term public health and long term public health consequences. And we're at a point now where the balance sheet doesn't look very favorable for long term consequences with short term gain. So we're not more than likely going to see any major closures or lockdowns like we saw before. But if you look at other parts of the world that did those things, and almost had a zero COVID approach—China is a great example—they're having huge spikes right now. And it's so problematic, in fact, they don't really have all the measures in place to deal with it. So we probably won't see it in the U.S., but other parts of the world are seeing that right now.

REICHARD: Zach Jenkins is a pharmacist and pharmacology professor at Cedarville University, a Christian college in Cedarville, Ohio. Zach, thanks so much for joining us today!

JENKINS: Thanks for having me.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The owner of a humble English pub recently stood his ground against a massive corporation and won!

Mark Graham runs a small business called the Star Inn at Vogue, borrowing the name of the tiny village where it’s situated—Vogue in the county of Cornwall.

Graham was minding his business when an impressive letterhead arrived in the mail from the massive media conglomerate Conde Nast, publisher of, can you guess the title, rhymes with “rogue”?

Yes, the publisher of British Vogue magazine demanded that Graham change his name!

GRAHAM: Well, me and my wife, Rachel, we've been here 17 years. No problems. But I did think they were being a little, um, heavy handed shall we say.

Yeah we shall say, and besides, these trademark matters, it’s all about who’s first, and the pub and the town were there first.

The audio here from the BBC:

GRAHAM: Well, I just basically explained to them that we’ve been here for 200 years—well the village has been here for 200 years—the pub slightly less than that…

The magazine came along in 1916, making it a relative spring chicken by comparison. Graham wrote back, “I see no record of you seeking permission from the villagers of Vogue for your glossy magazine.”

So he refused. And as it turns out, Conde Nast backed off and noted that further research by their team would have headed off the initial request.

Sorry to bother you, mate.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 17th.You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you are!

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

“Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount. “... for they shall be shown mercy.”

WORLD correspondent Amy Lewis met with an Australian woman who illustrates that truth.

AUDIO: [Packing fruits and vegetables]

AMY LEWIS, REPORTER: Alexandra Mikelsons’ Wednesday mornings start with packing fruit and veggies into green plastic bags in the storage room of a warehouse.

AUDIO: So are you doing four in here? How many boxes do we have of these. 2 boxes of green. Beautiful. 

It’s part thrift store, part church office, part food relief, part refugee assistance, part mercy ministry. And it’s all about listening to and loving people.

ALEX: Are you gonna see your daddy on Monday? Does she call him daddy?

SHAFIQA: Baba. 

ALEX: All right. Yes, so we can definitely help you with that.

The free market doesn’t start for 30 minutes. But already some regulars are waiting in the parking lot.

They walked or rode their bikes to this industrial section of Geelong’s suburbs. Here they pick up bags of plums and grapes, some locally-grown feijoas, mandarin oranges and bags of onions and potatoes. Mikelsons also puts together boxes of food for clients who will visit her office throughout the day.

SHAFIQA: I born in Afghanistan. And then we came to Pakistan…

It sounds like a typical mercy ministry, and maybe it is. After all, Alex grew up in the church. She ministers because she loves Jesus and she loves people. But her teen years were hard.

ALEX: When I was a teenager, I was a little bit of a difficult teenager. I was a very self-focused teenager, and, and I see that now. And then when I was 18, I fell pregnant.

And this is where her story diverges from so many others in her situation.

ALEX: and had amazing responses from my family and my church family and was really well supported through that which I know is not everyone's experience and have heard of a lot of hurt from people who have not had that same experience, particularly people in a church environment sometimes don't have that same experience.

She and her now-husband continued their family.

ALEX: And then when I was my third child was eight months old, I was diagnosed with lymphoma. And then through that, so having three young children under four, and then having treatment for cancer, and I was very well supported through that practically so with meals and childcare and that was from family and from friends and even from wider, wider communities.

After Mikelson’s cancer treatments, their church community rallied again with practical help and love when her paramedic husband’s hand got crushed. And again when her third daughter received a difficult diagnosis.

ALEX: She had been sick for a number of years as a teenager. And after, when she was 19 was diagnosed with the same lymphoma type of lymphoma that I had had when she was eight months old.

It was in the midst of these major life events that Mikelsons began to more deeply understand the basic human need of people needing people.

ALEX: But people are so important to each other. And I think that I've learned the importance of that for, for practical things, but also for mental health. And also for, I want to say, survival. It sounds dramatic, but God makes us to need people, you know, and makes us to need to connect with people. He's built us to be relational.

Her natural love for people and her first-hand experiences of need shape how she does her job at the ministry called 3216 Connect.

ALEX: So I'm a community care worker. And the role was set up, I believe, for showing God's love through, through the relief of poverty and vulnerability and disadvantage, and helplessness. It's to work within the community, the local community to show God's love in a practical way.

Australia’s social care system has gaps and blind spots. For example, refugees are allowed into the country but then left to their own resources. Volunteer organizations take up the slack. But this ministry and Mikelson’s job have a different flavor than most groups.

ALEX: Yeah, so it's a whole myriad of needs. And we are usually in a position to help with the need, or refer them to someone who's able to help them with their particular need. And a lot of people need to chat…and to be listened to and heard.

For some who come for food relief or help paying their bills, this might be the one interaction with people that they have all week.

ALEX: And I think that listening and being connected and building up more than an agency- and client-based relationship is really important so that people feel that they have a relationship, a friendship as well.

Mikelsons gets to see God work in other people’s lives. That itself is a gift.

ALEX: And I find a lot of joy in the interactions that we that I have with people out the front, that little community that meets in the car park and has their little fruit and veggie market stall and chat and tells you about you know, people tell me about their pets and their whatever. And also really sad things that happened. Someone came last week and said ‘My brother died this morning’ and felt that she could talk about it still while she was picking up her food and, and I love that God is making those relationships happen. And I find real joy in that.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 17th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s WORLD commentator Whitney Williams on things unseen and seen.

Mix: “Oooh there they are.”
Colt: “You see them?”
Mix: “Oh yeah.”

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, COMMENTATOR: It was a dark night in North Central Texas. No moon. No cars or homes for miles. Just my husband, our eldest son, and me bumping our way through a remote pasture in our blue Chevy Silverado. A small, dirty speck in an expanse of solitude.

Mix: “Oh, dude, yes, here we go.”

My husband slowed the truck to a stop, put it in park, turned it off, and told us we’d make the rest of our journey on foot. Our son decided to stay in the truck.

Whitney: “Alright, stay here.” (Truck door slams)
Colt: “How long you gonna be?”
Whitney: “Five minutes.” (Second truck door slams)

A minute or so into our walk, the truck’s interior lights went off, leaving us to the darkness. I did the wave-hand-in-front-of-face test and saw nothing. My steps adjusted accordingly: Slow, cautious, knees slightly bent, forearms outstretched for additional balance. I felt vulnerable, not able to see. I feared a minute variation in my course would eventually send me straight into the barbed wire fence that I trusted was still about eight feet to my right. A rolled ankle also rolled through my mind—the dirt road beneath our feet had recently been mud, rutted up by truck and tractor tires

Mix whispering: “Alright, they’re still up there a ways …”

My husband was more sure-footed and I suspect two things gave him such confidence. First, he had a clear mission—sneak up on some wild hogs and thin out the herd. He was passionate about this mission, I might add. The second thing that helped him move forward into the black night with confidence—a new thermal rifle scope. He had eyes to see

Whitney whispers: “What?”
Mix: “They’re moving off.”
Whitney: “Is it pigs?” [crickets chirping]

And soon, I did, too. About a hundred yards in, we stopped walking so I could have a look through his new toy. Gun in my hands, its butt on my shoulder, I lowered my right eye down to the thermal scope. Suddenly, I could see the limitations of my human senses. Dozens of creatures moved about us, each glowing a bright hot white. Deer and cows—they’d been there all along. But I had been blind to their presence.

“Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not there,” the moment preached. How cliche, I chuckled to myself, as I gave the gun back to my husband. But still, I settled into the idea, imagining the white hot glow of our adversary, the devil, prowling around us like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8); the angel of the Lord encamping all around those who fear God, delivering them (Psalm 34:7); the heavenly horses and chariots of fire that came to the prophet Elisha’s aid as the Syrian Army stared him down. “Do not be afraid,” Elisha told his fearful servant, who at first, only had eyes to see the physical army before them, “for those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6). I pondered Ephesians 6:12, which tells us that our true fight is not against flesh and blood.

I laid all this out before my husband during an early evening jog in a field near our home, comparing the Bible to his new thermal rifle scope. “It kind of gives us eyes to see, you know?”

After a long pause, I asked him, huffing: “What are your thoughts when you’re out there in total darkness and then suddenly you’re able to see the reality of what’s around you?”

He responded almost immediately: “I’m thinking: ‘What’s my next move?’”

I smiled.

“You’re disappointed in my response, aren’t you?” he asked me.

“No,” I said. “I actually think it’s perfect.”

I’m Whitney Williams.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: inflation. We’ll hear what the Biden administration is trying to do.

And, church under a bridge. We’ll take you to a unique service in Austin, Texas.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

May is our new donor drive and remember what we said at the beginning, that we have a matching gift for new gifts all this week, so a little urgency and an added incentive. WNG.org/newdonor.

The Bible says: faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God. (Heb 11:1, 3 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.