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)