If you ever wake up feeling overcome by optimism, oozing
with happiness and feeling so uplifted you can hardly stand it, just turn on
the morning news and watch it for a few minutes. That will bring you back to
earth – quickly.
Ebola and other diseases. ISIS and the constant threat of
terrorism. Wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, and many other places on Google
Earth. Murder and mayhem. Tragic accidents. Weather calamities and natural
disasters. Dismal economic reports. Corporate greed.
 |
| Don't world events sometimes make you want to scream? |
Celebrities morphing into human train wrecks. Star athletes
surrounded by scandal. Self-serving politicians. Escalating hatred between people of differing ideologies.
Have I cured your happy mood yet?
Apparently “happily ever after” exists nowhere but in fairy
tales. If we ever wonder where the world is going in the proverbial
hand-basket, it’s safe to venture a good guess. These days, when the media
inform us “no news is good news,” I think that means there’s lots of news, but
hardly any of it is good.
People who know me will tell you I’m an optimist at heart.
Given a container 50 percent full of something, I’ll vote for “half full” every
time. But given the barrage of events occurring in our nation and around the
world, and observing the sad course humanity seems to have chosen,
it’s become increasingly hard to find reasons for optimism.
And yet, for some people despair
is not a part of their vocabulary. For me and many others, this isn’t because
of some unwavering, Pollyanna belief that people are basically good. There’s too
much evidence to the contrary. No, determination to ward off despair has
nothing to do with a sense of confidence in our leaders, society in general,
human institutions, or the silly notion that “everything works out for the
best.” Rather, it’s confidence in God and His sovereignty, even when
circumstances of life seem in a death spiral.
Recently I came across a passage that neatly sums up my
perspective: “I would have lost heart,
unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of
the living” (Psalm 27:13). There it is, in less than 25 words, the source
of my hope – my confident assurance and earnest expectation.
A good friend likes to quote the following: “God is good…all
the time. All the time God is good.” And this is a man who’s experienced more
trauma, suffering and adversity than many of us could ever imagine. But
he’s right. Even when things are at their worst, the Lord remains good.
Admittedly, even those of us that don’t see God as some
aloof “force,” residing somewhere in the distant cosmos, but as a very involved
deity with a vested interest in the goings-on of Earth, we’d like Him to spring
into action. “Lord, do something. Anything…. And immediately would be good!”
So when hard times persist and God doesn’t seem to be
concerned, what does that tell us about Him? The next verse in the same psalm
gives us the key for not losing heart: “Wait
on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I
say, on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).
Of course, we don’t like to wait. As I’ve written before, we
live in an instant, microwave, “right now!” type of society, so waiting is
virtually countercultural. Perhaps that’s why a later psalm reminds us of the
virtue of waiting. Psalm 37:7 urges us to “Be
still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” and in verse 34 we see
the admonition repeated, perhaps for emphasis: “Wait for the Lord and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the
land….”
Easier said than done? Yes, that’s true. But that’s where
faith comes in. Even when times appear most bleak, it’s best to turn off the
news and refocus on the assurance, “I
would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of
the Lord in the land of the living.”
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