I've Got Good News!

Does anything good happen anymore? When I homeschooled, I talked to my children about God's plan for humanity and how we prideful humans messed it up, opening the door to sin and death. From a biblical worldview, I stressed that anything good that happens is evidence of God. No one is good but God. He is the Giver of good gifts. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes from Him. So, I gave an assignment: Write a newscast bearing in mind, bad news is no news at all; bad news is what we, as sinners in a sinful and cursed world can expect. I wanted to impress the point that good news is an anomaly, good events are truly newsworthy; the bad is just another day in the life of a world broken. As inhabitants of Earth, we should be awed by good news like kindness and healing and fairness, not sickness or death or corruption. So, why do you think news outlets peddle bad news like it's going out of style? I have two ideas and I'd like to share them with you so that you can approach current events with caution. We are the gatekeepers to our minds. Information must be checked at the door by the One who is Himself, Truth. Charles Spurgeon said, “Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.” Things that "sound right" or are loaded with emotion can be the most dangerous of all. 

First of all, bad news gives birth to more bad news. It is far more difficult for someone to break a pattern of self-pity or unforgiveness than it is to develop it in the first place. When we hear words like "an unarmed black man," or "three black youths in hoodies," those words are provocative and incendiary. Feelings of past hurt or fear can well up where you never even knew they existed, and form strongholds that affect our relationships. It's like the elderly woman who clutches more tightly to her purse when she sees a group of teens. She knows she's vulnerable. She's heard (on the news) what "they" are capable of. "They" are angered by her stereotypical, bigoted response and their body language demonstrates that, re-enforcing the elderly woman's beliefs. On and on down the rabbit hole we go, and any possibility of understanding one another or coming together is a wash. Divide us and conquer us. If you hate your neighbor enough to keep quiet when someone damages their car, you've just created the same opportunity for your neighbor to remain quiet when someone comes to rob your house. And when there's a crime spree or a race riot your friendly neighborhood news team will be right there to capture the story and jack up their ratings. (Besides, the devil just loves him some conflict.)

Secondly, bad news makes us feel pretty good about ourselves as a group. Bad news gives us a chance to sit around with other "good people" tsk-tsking the condition of the world. We can look at the degenerates in other states or neighborhoods, even on the other side of the world, and think to ourselves, "What kind of person would do that?" And we can go on about our day feeling satisfied we are still civilized or godly. The firefighter that charges selflessly into a burning building to rescue a child might make us feel warm and fuzzy for a moment, but when Satan gets to whispering, "How does your life stack up?" we shut that down. Let's face it, we don't want to hear how good everyone else is. We have a natural inclination to want others to fail; it is through their failures, we can deceive ourselves into believing we have succeeded. News outlets are in it for the profits, they understand human nature and know bad news sells better than good news. (And once again, the devil loves haters.)

Before we get too caught up in who is doing what and at what "increasing rate," and how our nation, our world is going to hell in a handbasket (whatever that means), take a moment. Place the things you are hearing and seeing, the things that are going on, in the hands of the God who is good, the God who makes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on all. Trust that God is sovereign and mighty. Don't fixate on the events themselves, but lift everything up in prayer. And take a walk. There's a whole world full of people who need others, just like you. They won't tell you that on the news.