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| It's staring back at me, isn't it? |
There's something I would like people (myself most of all) to do: stop obsessing over the horrible things going on in the world.
I don't mean to stop paying attention or to ignore these things. I don't mean to stop caring, perceiving, considering, praying, alleviating, or fighting these things. I just mean to stop letting these things consume our entire lives.
The world is cursed. Death, violence, and all sorts of horrors plague it every minute of every day. Our own time has its own particular flavors of sin's fruit: violent Islam, abortion culture, racial hatred, economic crises, political schisms, international tensions. There's a lot going on.
We don't need to make it even worse.
This will sound strange coming from me, the most pessimistic and cynical person I know, but we need to shift our gaze to the positive. Even in the context of scary or horrible things, there are good things to turn to. Islam? We can pray for peace. Abortion? We can support pro-life causes. Racism? We can see peaceful coexistence in everyday life. Economics? We can count our blessings. Politics? We can be comforted that God's kingdom is not of this world. International relations? We can remember that God rules all nations.
Not only are there always good alternatives to bad things in the world, but focusing on the negative harms our souls. When we focus solely on the unwholesome things of the world, we end up mirroring them in ourselves. We look at other people's failings and are tempted to pride. We look at hatred and respond to it in kind. We start to devalue other people and degrade ourselves by turning more and more into instinctive animals rather than thinking, feeling humans.
This isn't just me talking. Philippians 4:8 instructs us, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Ephesians 5:11 says, "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them," and verses 15-16 say, "Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." The Bible is clear: we need to be aware of darkness, but have nothing to do with it ourselves, focusing on Godly wisdom instead.
Constantly proclaiming how evil everything is allows evil to control our lives. If we really want to escape such things, we have to stop making them the focal point of our hearts and minds. We know the world isn't the way it's supposed to be; instead, let's try to be what we know we're supposed to be.
