We’re in an economic downturn.  A recession, they say.  You heard about that lately?  How many people do you know that have lost their houses?  How many of your friends are you having to help with food and shelter and clothes?  And, the swine flu is taking over the country.  Right?  You know anybody that has it?

The reality is that we’re inundated with bad news.  It’s mostly blown way out of proportion and it’s harped on and focused on and pictured from every possible gory angle.  For some reason, that’s what people are drawn to.  Several attempts have been made over the years to have newspapers and programs that just told good news.  They didn’t survive because people just didn’t buy into them.  Nobody watched.  But, boy do people buy bad news!

Satan loves to help us rub each other’s faces in the unpleasant.  I’m not sure how much help he needs though as our fleshly natures seem to feed on the bad.  You noticed how hard people croon their necks driving by a car accident scene trying to see the damage, and maybe even some blood, I suppose?  Why do we do that?  You really want to see that stuff?

Well, you can choose to be happy or sad, optimistic or pessimistic, positive or negative simply by what you look at and think about.  Think about the bad, think about the negative possibilities, focus on the ugly, and you’ll be sad.  Think about the good, think about the positive possibilities, focus on the beautiful, and you’ll be happy.  It’s that simple.  It’s certainly not easy, but it’s also not complicated.

In Philippians 4:4-13, Paul said he had personally learned the secret of contentment—real happiness.  And, that’s coming from a guy that lived a pretty brutal life, by our standards.  A big part of what he’d learned to do in order to be content, he commanded of us when he said, “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.” This is the guy that was singing while chained in a dark, dank Philippi jail (Acts 16:25)!  Yeah, he’d definitely learned some secret most of us haven’t learned.

Turn on the news and you’re going to get a focus on the negative.  Get in conversations with most people, and you’ll definitely hear all the bad that’s going on. But, Christians can and ought to be different.  We have every reason to be positive.  We have every reason to optimistic—“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose…in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:28, 37).

When you walk through life, if you keep looking down long enough, you will eventually find some money or something with earthly value.  A very few find large amounts.  However, you’ll also see a lot of trash and rubbish and gross stuff too.  Lots more of that down there than there are things of value.  But, if you walk through life and persist in looking up you’ll find God.  And, you’ll find the deep and real beauty that goes with that too.  Look up.  Refuse to have your face rubbed in the bad news.  Refuse to be the one that constantly starts conversations about bad news.  Refuse to be the one so ready to believe evil about everyone, including our president.  Choose to be good news to those around you.