There was a time, years ago, when we didn’t have smart phones.
We weren’t (willingly) bombarded with every little (bad) thing going on in our neighborhoods, cities, states, or world. Flash forward to today and you can’t go anywhere without hearing about the latest political comment or the most recent terrorist attack. Our lives are overwhelmed with negative news everywhere we look. We easily slip onto the train of negativity, and feed into it. How do we feed into it? Our minds go to the worst possible scenarios and how the world is coming to an end. It’s neither good nor healthy for us to get sucked into it. Why?
As the Church we have a responsibility to uphold the truth of the gospel and the hope that it provides. It’s not to feed on the all-too-common negative and fearful rhetoric. Yes, we can and should grieve the sin in the world, but we need to be the light that reflects the hope that the gospel provides. Let’s turn fear on its head and replace it with hope. How do we replace it with hope? It’s easy to say that, but how do we actually do it? With a hope for the future, a hope in Jesus.