Bean column: Many are asking, but are they seeking?

It’s no mystery that we live in a fallen world. With history’s worst oil spill still gushing, our nation’s political atmosphere increasingly partisan, and much of the world’s population still living in poverty and/or illiteracy, it’s

easy for us to become frus

trated and discouraged, wondering if we will ever be able to muster the incentive and means to make the world a healthier, more peaceful place. From the national news alone, I am forced to believe that the world is ending. But is negativity the right way to approach humanity’s problems?

Sure, guilt and embarrassment are big motivators for change. Sometimes simply seeing the immensity of a problem is enough to make people want to solve it. Just reading about poverty in Africa or the extent to which Islamic fundamentalist schools threaten to outnumber general education schools in poverty-stricken Pakistan is enough to make my heart ache.

So why don’t we act?

There seems to be more to improvement than merely seeing faults. We can become so overwhelmed by legions of local, national, and global crises that we can’t decide where to start improving – or if we want to even try.

The writer of Psalm 4:6 noted that “Many are asking ‘Who can show us anything good?’” All the news we really notice seems to carry nothing but disappointment. If anyone is doing anything out there, it sure doesn’t seem to be working. Seeing this, more tentative people aren’t very motivated to join in. It’s easier to think that trouble is all there is to see this side of Heaven, and that we will have to do away with the world to fix it.

When others accuse us of being to blame for at least part of the mess, we feel compelled to point out its overawing magnitude and the millions of others who aren’t acting either. Guilt is easily passed on from person to person (as many of us have noticed), with those involved moving towards resentment. And because finger-pointers are too busy looking where they’re pointing, nothing gets done about the issue itself, and the people who are working on it don’t get recognized.

Let’s pause for a moment in this contemplation of the folly of blame-casting and finish that Bible verse.

The psalmist continues: “‘Who can show us anything good?’ Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.”

What was that? Surely there must be a good reason why he said to look at God when it’s people we’re having problems with.

We can get so busy staring at the darkness of flawed human character that we no longer look at the Perfect One in whose image we were made. We meander in circles looking at this tortured planet, at how bad we are and have been. But why not look up, “where Christ is seated at the right hand of God,” at the giver of our victory whose perfect example we are supposed to follow? Look at how good we can be and are meant to be, but aren’t because we’re too busy looking at ourselves!

Christians have the fullness of God himself inside of them in the form of the Holy Spirit. They are able to fulfill his command to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), but only if they look within for his power.

God doesn’t expect or intend mediocrity in our mortal lives, and as long as we live here, whether or not that’s not much longer, he expects us to do our Spirit-empowered best to make the world a better place than it was or is now. If we think we’re the only ones concerned with this mission, we need only to think of our Creator, whose job is never finished and whose concern none can match, and those special people who have been working quietly, patiently, without ever making national news — for there are indeed bright stars among this seemingly lackluster place. God is good, and as such he is the source of all other blessings we find; when we start looking at him, we can’t help noticing the pockets of light he has placed in our lives to encourage us, guide us, and keep our candles burning.

So “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2). When you get discouraged or frustrated, look up to him who knows the situation from a heavenly perspective and can tell you what you need to do, give you what you lack, and be with you in the process.

Ask him for a new perspective. You won’t be disappointed with the goodness you’ll start to see, and it will overflow into the lives of those around you, inspiring them to look past the world’s present brokenness into the glory God has waiting.

Megan Bean will be a freshman at Catawba College this fall.