Maybe It Will Go Away if We Shut Our Eyes

Or, if we put our fingers in our ears and sing loudly, “La, la, la" – we won’t hear them!” After all the uncertainties, concerns, disappointments, and disturbances in their lives, I think many folks are at the tipping point of losing it. In the words of my old cartoon friend from way back, Popeye the sailor man, they are saying “I’ve stoods it tills I can stands it no more!” Oh, I get it. We’ve all felt the pain and we've had enough! Remember those three little monkeys? One covers his eyes so that he sees no evil, the other covers his ears so that he hears no evil, and the third monkey covers his mouth, so he speaks no evil. Sounds like those little monkeys are incredibly wise. But see ye, hear ye and speak ye — we don’t have to become part of the darkness out there. We can rather be a beacon of light and a source of truth and strength in our world. Light dispels darkness. “For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.” (Isaiah 60:2) Unless we live in a cave 24/7, there is no way to avoid seeing and hearing about evil. Maybe the “speak no evil” is the closest we could come to being one of those monkeys. If we only paid attention to the news or social media, we’d think there was only darkness in the world — only bad news. Only evil. But if we would meditate on the blessings in our lives as well as start our day reading the Good News of God's Word, then we'd be pre-conditioned with the goods to combat the negativity. That is one of my motives daily -- to blog about God's goodness and mercies to help start my readers (and me) off with spring in our steps each new day. Then our minds will be filled with good and the bad news could not overcome it. We say with Paul, “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57). And, “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4) We must look for good news if we are going to find it. We must believe that God brings the best of times in the middle of the worst of times. It’s not hard to live in the darkness with anger and negativism, pessimism, and despair. We can look for the worst and fail to believe the best. These are the words of our “BEST OF TIMES” Lord: “Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12) Two teams are playing in this world. One is all about darkness, and the other is all about light. One is all about bad news and the other is all about good news. We know which one will win — let’s join THAT team who are Christ’s ambassadors and messengers of hope, comfort, and peace to this world.