Those Tricky Binoculars

The title of my Blog, “Putting in a Good Word,” is exactly what I will be doing here—with gusto. I will be gushing shamelessly about everything good—about God, about life, about the world around us. This will be my rooftop and I will shout about good loud and clear until … well, until we’re looking at good through the correct end of the binoculars again.

Huh? Binoculars?

When you look out of binoculars the right way, everything is up close and very large, like you can reach out and touch it. But flip them around the wrong way, and the same scene becomes faraway and miniscule. Welcome to what has been done right over our noses. And given the media’s help, those babies can be flipped in a flash and we’re none the wiser. So we fall for the lie. Bad is big. Good is little.

And as we gape through those tricky binoculars day after day, hearing all the tragic and heinous atrocities human beings can perpetrate on one another, the negative aspects of our world become so huge and heavy on our hearts and minds, it obscures anything else from view. Like the magnitude of good. Wait … does good even exist anymore? I can’t see it …

And when we can’t see good, it leads to discouragement and then, paralysis. If bad is overcoming good, why even try? Can you guess who benefits when good people are paralyzed into doing nothing?

Well, goodness is going to be magnified here—in all its panoramic glory. We’re going to see it and it’s going to be HUGE! And it’s going to be fun, not to mention, empowering, to take charge of the binoculars again. How? By truly believing, as I do, that the theme verse for this blog is not just a good suggestion that we should try our best to follow. Instead, it is a vitally wise choice we need to make every day.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8 (ESV)

In His infinite wisdom, God knew that if we would choose to focus on what He says to, it would keep us looking at the world through the right end of the binoculars and seeing the truth about good—that it is as wonderfully immense as He is.

So welcome to the journey! It’s going to be good.