Isaiah 61:1;3 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me… to proclaim good news to the poor… and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. [NIV]
“Grandma, you know what’s weird about you?” asked my 8-year-old grandson. “You’re not old, but you look really old.” He must have sensed something wasn’t quite right about his remark, so he quickly added, “But you look really young behind your earlobes!”
My vanity took a bit of a hit that day. Yet I could appreciate his sweet attempt to look for something good. A trait I need to practice more of in my life.
I don’t know about you, but all the negativity in the world can pull me down like a riptide. I focus on stalled answers to prayer, on places where it feels like deception keeps racking up wins, on one depressing news story after another. And I latch on to my disappointments and inadequacies more than the power of redeeming grace.
I think we sometimes forget what Christianity is all about. Jesus came to show us we don’t have to linger in the shadow of the fall. We are going to encounter situations we can’t change, broken relationships we can’t reconcile, mistakes we wish we’d never made. But that’s not the end of the story. We have hope!
Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would come and proclaim good news. He would transform ashes of disappointment into something beautiful. He would turn mourning into joy, despair into praise. But we might miss it, if we’re not expecting it.
I recently heard a man speak about the importance of focusing on what God is doing, not on what we lack. Because the more we fix our eyes on the bad stuff, the less we fix them on Jesus.
So I want to encourage you to be intentional about looking for the good in those inevitable distressing situations. Don’t let anything steal your hope, sabotage your faith, or dilute your courage in living out your call. Listen, if my grandson can find youthful-looking earlobes in my aging body, surely we can find good news to proclaim no matter what we face.