How concerned should we be about the future? What do we discern of coming years as signs of the times -- our particular era -- intensify around us?

We are not ones for panic. To overly fret is to lack faith. God will provide. God will protect those who are loyal to Him. He does so for the sparrows, let alone humans.

At the same time, the landscape around us is shifting -- metaphorically and sometimes literally.

We heed the Bible's admonishment to consider prophetic utterance, and as the prophetic indicators increase, we have increasingly cited a 1990 prediction that the world is facing not a final apocalypse but, rather, huge trends that will profoundly alter the way we live (bringing it more in line with what God originally intended).

That alleged "prophecy" -- which came in a dream, and which we continue to consider because aspects have materialized in the past 18 years -- was "spot on" in its forecast of "regional" chastisements; its accurate indication of September 11; and its foresight of what we now call cloning and genetic manipulation.

It also had things to say about the way we live -- the way we have fashioned (and often misshaped) the world around us.

This may be a part that needs special attention.

"Your era is ending," that alleged prophecy intoned, quoting the Lord or an angel. "Soon the world will not be the world you know.

"I am not speaking of a barren world, or one depopulated, but of the end of your technological era. Many inventions of mankind will be broken down and there will be more of a peasant attitude and way of life everywhere."

The dictionary tells us that peasantry means "small farmers and tenants, sharecroppers, and laborers on the land where they form the main labor force in agriculture; a country person; a rustic."

Do we see glimmerings of just such a transition?

What a transition this would be from the current hyper-cellular-connected-computerized-plastic-high-speed-motorized reality we have constructed.

Whatever the case, it was extremely similar to what has been stated by a former atheist named Dr. Howard Storm, who famously claimed he was told by angels during a near-death experience that the infrastructure of America was headed for collapse -- if it kept its distance from what God planned -- and that the great nation, which had been blessed like no other in history, would be reduced to a third-world nation in the coming centuries (with people fighting over a "cup of gasoline" [see short video linked at end of this story]).

Dr. Storm's experience, which has been discussed everywhere from the Today Show to Good Morning America, rings a bell of late with skyrocketing oil costs that are soon foreseen to cause gas prices of four dollars a gallon. One analyst, Alan Gaines, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, sees gasoline rising to $7 or $8 a gallon while a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Florida, Sean Brodrick, projects an eventual range of $8 to $10 a gallon. OPEC's president said just yesterday (4/29) that oil could hit $200 a barrel -- which would all but transform (and regress) the global economy.

Can you imagine the prices of other items if such occurs -- and how it will change the way we perceive of transportation?

Already, food prices are a growing concern and there even has been the hoarding of rice -- such that one major chain, Sam's Club, has warned that it may limit purchases.

Others see the price of bread as more than tripling.

As one financial writer noted, "the latest data show cereal prices rising by more than eight percent a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13 percent. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: they're all up by more than ten percent. Eggs have rocketed up thirty percent in a year."

"I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food," he wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "No, this is not a drill. You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market.

"Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster. 'Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund."

And take a look at this from The New York Times a month ago:

"The traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.

"It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, Wealth, War and Wisdom, he says people should 'assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.

"'Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,'" Mr. Biggs writes. "'It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.'"

An over-reaction?

We have not gone that far. But there are even longer-term trends we must watch, such as the effect of natural disasters, climate swerves, the result of massive national debt, water shortages, and the parting of American regions along ethnic and racial circumstances. We have long warned that the the infrastructure of the West is far more fragile than most assume -- as witnessed in relatively "small" events such as 9/11 and "Katrina," which all but brought us to our technological knees.

We see the choices of mankind drawing us closer to the scenario of which Dr. Storm warned. The indications, at times, seem startling.

At the same time, we don't advocate running for the hills.

What we advocate is going to God.

We have diverted from God's Plan -- we are no longer natural -- and if we continue that route are headed for a purification. Watch everything that has to do with infrastructure. Ask God in prayer if and how to prepare.

"God has tried to get through to us millions and millions of times," says Dr. Storm in the video snippet. "We have been a big disappointment to God because we have consistently refused to listen to Him. We can keep asking why God allows this and that, why He allows war and suffering. That question is predicated on a false assumption. God doesn't want any of these things to happen. It's all against God's Will. It's our perverse nature that causes these things to happen. We tend to ascribe to God all the bad things that happen and we take responsibility and ascribe to ourselves all the good things that happen, when it's just the opposite. God wants us to live in harmony with one another and with His beautiful Creation. The suffering is of human origin."

When Jesus came into the world, Dr. Storm says he was told, it was a great opportunity to completely alter the way we relate to each other. We have failed, during the past 2,000 years, he claims, to do so.

"Wake up," he says, "or the slate will be wiped clean. I was shown possibilities. I don't know if they are the way things could be or the way things will be."

He says that the U.S. is on the verge of losing its special "blessing" -- that the Lord will choose another nation because ours is failing to do what the Lord intended. "The angels assured me there will be an intervention," he asserts. "God can take the gift away. This country could be the lowest instead of the highest, the poorest instead of the richest, the weakest instead of the strongest, and some other nation will be chosen to show the world the way of Jesus Christ.

"I don't know how it will play out. I was shown possibilities. My experience occurred in 1985. In the time since, I have seen good things happen and bad things happen.  I have children and grandchildren. I want them to have the preferred future, not the horrible possible future that I was also shown. It's all about heart change. We need to be using our wealth, our power, to bring God's love to the rest of the world. They also told me there is no sitting on the fence. You are either working for God's good or you are opposed to God's good. To be indifferent to God's good is to be opposed to it. In this battle of good versus evil, there is no middle ground. You have to be out there living God and loving your neighbor and living that if you are really part of God's Plan. This is the moment to decide."

The predictions of fundamentalists may be too loud and harsh, he says, but are "basically right."

Major events loom. There will be a breakdown.

Look to a future that will be simpler.

Look to one in which men are closer to Creation.

Look to one in which cooperation replaces competition and war -- about which Storm was especially warned. God, He says, opposes all forms of war.

Is it an awakening? Are we starting to come out of a slumber -- the sleep of materialism?

What we'll say is that God gives indications of what we need and when we will need it and that if the nation turned to Him, it would not have to contemplate shortages and wild price rises and a painful and almost apocalyptic transition to begin with.

[see also: short Dr. Storm video]

[resources: Tower of Light and Michael Brown: retreat CDs]

[see also: What you need to know about Monsanto, Emptying the breadbasket, Time to stockpile food?, Food panic hits Canadian stores, U.N. and World Bank say to tackle food crisis, Food prices squeeze families, and Homeless occupy historic basilica]