Why Do I Keep Finding More Bad News?
Read The Daily:
Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8
Aaron shared one of my favorite stories (that I use way too much lol) about the vulture and the hummingbird. Same sky. Same world. Same landscape. One spends all day looking for dead things. The other spends all day looking for sweetness. And the wild part is both of them find exactly what they went searching for.
I have noticed this in myself more than I want to admit. If I wake up irritated, stressed, frustrated at life, I can suddenly find confirmation for it everywhere. Somebody cuts me off in traffic. An email annoys me. Social media becomes a giant collection of people making terrible decisions. It is like my brain starts collecting evidence to support the mood I already walked into the day carrying. And honestly, sometimes I do not even realize how locked in I have become on the negative until I cannot enjoy anything anymore.
What hit me in this moment is that perspective is not pretending life is perfect. The hummingbird still lives in the same world as the vulture. It just keeps searching for something different. I think that is why gratitude changes the atmosphere inside of me even when circumstances stay messy. Not because pain disappears, but because goodness was there too, and I almost missed it while staring at everything dead around me.
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Prayer for the Day
God what are you showing me? What am I going to do about it?
God help me to see one person that I can serve through a kind word, random act of kindness, or simple gift today?
Make sure you complete the reading or comment today.
Read The New Testament In A Year
A jug of sour wine was standing by. Someone put a sponge soaked with the wine on a javelin and lifted it to his mouth. After he took the wine, Jesus said, “It’s done . . . complete.” Bowing his head, he offered up his spirit. Then the Jews, since it was the day of Sabbath preparation, and so the bodies wouldn’t stay on the crosses over the Sabbath (it was a high holy day that year), petitioned Pilate that their legs be broken to speed death, and the bodies taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man crucified with Jesus, and then the other. When they got to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. One of the soldiers stabbed him in the side with his spear. Blood and water gushed out. The eyewitness to these things has presented an accurate report. He saw it himself and is telling the truth so that you, also, will believe. These things that happened confirmed the Scripture, “Not a bone in his body was broken,” and the other Scripture that reads, “They will stare at the one they pierced.” After all this, Joseph of Arimathea (he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, because he was intimidated by the Jews) petitioned Pilate to take the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission. So Joseph came and took the body. Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, came now in broad daylight carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. They took Jesus’ body and, following the Jewish burial custom, wrapped it in linen with the spices. There was a garden near the place he was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been placed. So, because it was Sabbath preparation for the Jews and the tomb was convenient, they placed Jesus in it. John 19:29-42
And don’t tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I’m perfectly free to do this–isn’t that obvious? Haven’t I been given a job to do? Wasn’t I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren’t you yourselves proof of the good work that I’ve done for the Master? Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can’t deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority! I’m not shy in standing up to my critics. We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations, and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don’t seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master’s brothers and Peter in these matters. So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way? Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don’t milkmaids get to drink their fill from the pail? I’m not just sounding off because I’m irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law. Moses wrote, “Don’t muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it’s threshing.” Do you think Moses’ primary concern was the care of farm animals? 1 Corinthians 9:1-9