YOU NEED MORE GOOD NEWS by William Boekestein for Core Christianity
How much bad news do you need? How much good news? And is there a right mix? More personally, have you found it? And to get practical, might an imbalanced intake-ratio of bad and good news magnify your troubles and minimize your faithfulness?
God doesn’t want people to be uninformed. Hearing some bad news allows us to sympathize with mistreated people around the world (Heb. 13:3). And we need to know enough for us to respond faithfully to the troubles that actually confront us. But we should not be ignorant about how bad and good news affects our walk with the Lord.
The Power of News
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Proverbs 12:25 reports the impact that news has on us: “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.” By using parallelism, the main feature of Hebrew poetry, Solomon contrasts several ideas to help convey the meaning of the larger thought. “Anxiety” is contrasted with “a good word”; there is an oil-versus-water tension between the two. Good words can mitigate the trouble in a person’s heart. The phrase “weighs him down” spars with “makes him glad.” News can make us either downcast and discouraged or upbeat and hopeful.
The prophet Jeremiah illustrates the power of bad news. Two powerful cities of Syria “are confounded, for they have heard bad news; they melt in fear, they are troubled like the sea that cannot be quiet” (Jer. 49:23). When Scripture paints a word picture we should imagine it. Bad news washes over us one wave of anxiety after another. By contrast, Solomon says that good news is like “cold water to a thirsty soul” (Prov. 25:25). Water soothes a parched mouth; good news satisfies the soul.
We are profoundly shaped by the news we hear. It can slowly, imperceptibly make us more hopeful or fearful, loving or hateful, generous or miserly, compassionate or inflexible. You might not notice how you are being shaped by the news you take in. But your friends and social media followers could probably identify your major news sources based on how you are rebroadcasting.
