Recently,
in the course of conversation, a friend said to me, “we (as people in
general) have an obsession with bad news.” I had never consciously
acknowledged that before, but I immediately recognized it to be
true. Just a few days later I was catching up with some folks I hadn’t
seen in a while. As I inquired about mutual acquaintances, every
response was colored with negative reports. Had I not been pondering my
obsession with bad news, I may not have even noticed these responses as
being anything other than normal. I realized how conditioned we are to
draw attention to misfortunes, disappointments, failures, and
trials. We are curiously attentive to the sensational news that more
often than not concerns pain, tragedy, or loss.
The voices of this world are loud and many.
They come through emails, media, co-workers, family, and friends. I
feel a constant demand beckoning me to take notice of the latest story
of child abduction, rape, or murder. These are more than distant
voices, they are invasive. I have personally lost three friends to the
tragic devastation of drugs and alcohol. Through prayer, I have felt
the pain and desperation of those trapped in sex slavery. Even the
alarm system on our home reminds me of the danger present just around
the corner. I find myself living in a culture where I am tempted to be
suspicious of everyone and trust no one. All of these things paint an
awful picture of an ugly, fallen world, a world where my preoccupation
with original sin causes me to forget original beauty.
After
a few weeks of prayer meetings, it was reported to me that fourteen
young girls were rescued from their sex-traffickers. They now have an
opportunity to be placed in a Christian recovery home to live and
receive restorative ministry. This home has been very successful in
their efforts because, by their own admonition, they recognize that
Christ is the true Healer. I began to share with our worship team,
“…imagine where these girls will be under this type of care in six
months, a year from now…” A very foreign emotion powerfully struck my
heart – the feeling of beauty. I felt the beauty of God shine on me,
the understanding of His ability to restore, His desire to give beauty
for ashes, His pleasure in turning our mourning into dancing, our
sorrow into joy. All the testimonies I had heard about the lives of so
many young girls who have been rescued from sex slavery and restored
through Christ began to flood my mind. I actually believed they could
laugh again, dream again, dance, play, and just be children. I realized
that I had become overwhelmed with evil, and that the experience of
beauty had become totally foreign.
While
heaven weeps, heaven also rejoices – continually. Because somewhere,
somebody is finally surrendering their life to God, someone is
experiencing the heavenly Father’s embrace for the first time, a young
woman is being rescued from a brothel, someone’s innocence is being
restored, a child is being born, a mother is nursing. In a world
drowned in darkness, I must continually fix my eyes upon the Father who
is ever bent over humanity with His arms open, patiently waiting and
inviting us, His broken children, into His eternal embrace. He is the
Father who has felt evil more deeply than we ever could, who has lost
more children, cried more tears, and suffered more tragedy. He sees
everything – nothing is kept secret from Him. Yet His beauty
surrounds Him. He continually expresses Himself in hope, forgiveness,
love, patience, care, compassion, tenderness, freedom, and life. He is
“the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of
turning.” He invites me to enter into His beauty, to be transformed by
His glory, to embody His nature. Yet, I find it much easier to become
cynical, a prophet of doom.
Henri
Nouwen accurately defined the condition I am so tempted to embrace,
“Cynics seek darkness wherever they go. They point always to
approaching dangers, impure motives, and hidden schemes. They call
trust naïve, care romantic, and forgiveness sentimental…They consider
themselves realists who see reality for what it truly is and who are
not deceived by ‘escapist emotions.’ But in belittling God’s joy, their
darkness only calls forth more darkness.” As a prophet of doom, “I try
so hard in so many ways to convince others of how evil the evil really
is. How intense the judgment will really be.”
We
are not called to deny the darkness, but we are also not called to live
in it, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Overcoming evil with good challenges me to step beyond my propensity to
be a prophet of doom, to becoming a prophet of beauty. While Isaiah
fiercely confronted the social evils of his time, he was nevertheless a
prophet of beauty. He dared to describe God as a Bridegroom rejoicing
over His bride, as a Mother who will never forget Her child, and a
Redeemer whose love drove Him to die an innocent death for the sake of
the guilty. He saw the zeal of God to overcome evil by the power of His
Spirit. He saw the God whose glory shines brightest in the midst of
deep darkness.
Jesus
was a prophet of beauty. Rather than find curious fascination in
untimely death, He raised the dead. Rather than bemoan the plight of
the hungry, He multiplied food for them. Rather than relegate issues of
social justice to Human Rights organizations, He healed the
brokenhearted, set the captives free, and delivered all who were
oppressed by the devil. In the hour of His greatest crisis when He may
have been tempted to turn cynical, to curse rather than bless, He cried
out, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” He pointed the
way home for all of humanity. Yes, He wept, but He also hoped,
believed, and called forth beauty in the midst of darkness.
We
must strive to see beauty. We are not called to be curiously fascinated
by darkness – We are called to overcome it. We are not called to
exploit this world – We are called to save it. We must see the light in
the midst of darkness and dare to trust that that light is true and
speaks greater volumes than the darkness. We must move from suspicion,
despair, and “realism,” to faith, hope, and love. There are many
prophets of doom, but few prophets of beauty. Moses asked God to show
him His glory. The Lord then made His “goodness” pass before him. David
said he would have “lost heart” had he not seen “the goodness of the
Lord in the land of the living.” I am asking God to show me His beauty
in all of its manifestations. I want to be one who is sustained not by
self-righteous zeal and heroism but a fascination with the beauty of
God. I want to see beyond the mourning to the dancing, beyond the sorrow to the joy, beyond the ashes to the beauty. “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us!” (Ps. 90:17)
