When Life Breaks, What Happens to the Good?

Early morning reads that had local implications:

(1) The Tonga Volcano eruption needs to be classified as an “Ultra” event with a new name. It was the most devastating volcano in recorded history (??). The shock wave was felt around the globe. A tsunami raced across the Pacific. The plume reached halfway into space! A new island it created less than ten years ago is now obliterated. A hotel company had thought to build on the new island a few years ago. Residents are isolated and recovering without much support, it seems.

(2) Hospitalizations due to C-19 have increased over 700% in the county including Seattle.

(3) It’s a never-ending story of politics, tragedy, struggles, and so much more damaging.

Life breaks more often than not. Or at least that’s how we look at our modern times. How do we know about it? You can hardly go anywhere or do anything without the news splattering across the walls and pages of our daily lives.

We struggle with living positively when every sound bite is consumed with the negative. Saviors are now albatrosses. A pandemic is rapidly becoming an endemic – in other words, C-19 is not going away. The once touted savior of democracy is now being blasted as someone they never thought he’d be. School-aged kids are struggling. Families cannot reunite—worker shortages.

Don’t get me started thinking about the spiritual fallout. When things get tough, it seems, only the tough will survive. Hmmm… What did Jesus say in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares?

Another parable He put forth to them, saying:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;
but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
So the servants of the owner came and said to him,
‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
He said to them,
‘An enemy has done this.’
The servants said to him,
‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
But he said,
‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ‘ “
Matthew 13:24-30 NKJV

Good Times, Bad Times

We are rapidly learning, and teaching the next generation, that the good times are hand-in-glove with the bad times. How we react will be the generational telling of our lives. We pray the Good outweighs the Bad, but time will tell – because we will tell them with the choices we make.

We learned to look for Superman, Mighty Mouse, or even Popeye as kids. Indeed our hero will swoop in and save the day! When we became adults, we relied on our family to help us out in the swooning times. Now that we are seniors? Well, the picture we are left with can be attributed to our attitudes or an outlook that says, “…that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

We all know people who tend to survive through the bad times and celebrate through the good times. Maybe our view should be as how Jesus approached those who are false prophets.

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
Matthew 7:17-20 NKJV

Good and bad choices are just a product of who we have chosen to be. Good. Bad. It’s not making bad choices during good times or vice-versa. It’s about Being Good, or Being Bad, no matter what the times are like.

As I pause to research this thought, it could be possible to focus on the negatives. We look for negatives, and then we like to repeat them. How about changing our perspective. Look for Good and then Repeat Them!

One Last Thought

A better life is about being Good even when Life grows weird. “What’s done in Vegas, stays in Vegas…” does not compute if we are attempting to excuse our actions just because we are in a place where anything goes. There is good everywhere. It depends on the people and the environment.

Some of the most optimistic individuals have come out of very adverse events. That is perhaps the good we would do (Romans 7) because we are full of something much better than what we would do. After all, it’s our nature. You nurture the Good and overcome the Bad.

That’s how you live when life breaks.