D. A. Carson writes in his For the Love of God, Vol. 2 for the meditation on Jeremiah 14:

Because our own culture tries so hard to detach from God what happens in the “natural” world, reserving for him only private or distantly “spiritual” things, we rush to give naturalistic explanations for our wars and famines and plagues instead of at least trying to learn the lessons providence may be teaching us. I am not suggesting that it is easy to read providence. We have seen that Scripture itself warns us against trying to infer too much too quickly (Luke 13:1-5). Nevertheless, not to draw any moral and spiritual lessons from disasters may be nothing more than an index of how far we have sold ourselves to the forces of secularization. We resolutely refuse to “hear” what God says when he speaks to us in the language of judgment–exactly the response of ancient Israel. Indeed, according to this chapter there was a hearty collection of religious leaders who denied any connection between disaster and divine judgment (14:14). It is ever so. So not only will prophets be held accountable for what they say and teach, but the people are responsible for what they choose to listen to.

Is it possible that God has given Americans $4 gas prices (which, by the way are still extremely cheap compared to prices in the rest of the world) to remind us that we are not economically omnipotent?

This doesn’t necessarily mean that we should avoid trying to bring those prices down, but it seems that virtually all of the people I hear complaining about this issue (on both sides of the political spectrum) are assuming that we have an entitlement to cheap gasoline, rather than acknowledging thankfully the gift of having enjoyed cheap prices for so long.