Reading The News

Reading the News

Lately it’s been hard to read the news.

Far from me, injustice rages and chaos rules. Thirty children and their teachers are awakened at gunpoint and murdered at a boarding school in Nigeria. Insurrection, rape, and armed assault disrupt the streets of Egypt. A British soldier is beheaded on a London street in broad daylight, and his bloodied, delighted murderer celebrates on camera. Lord, have mercy.

Nearer to home, a media-soaked, incendiary murder trial comes to a fever-pitch end, politicians call each other names and angle for personal power while claiming to represent “the people,” and nineteen brave firefighters die in a single blazing Arizona afternoon. Christ, have mercy.

Nearer still, at my house—in my family, my congregation, my community—sickness challenges stability, death lurks, relationships are broken, betrayal wounds, and hopes are shattered. Lord, have mercy.

I wonder how God means for me to read the news and what he means for me to do with the suffering I see and feel. I can’t simply ignore reality written large in black and white. When I was little, my dad would let me sit on his lap as he read the paper. I would “read” with him, looking at the pictures or the occasional word he pointed to and helped me to sound out. Together, we read the news—and I am sure not all of it was good, even then. But I did not know it. I was shielded from the weight of the words in the crook of his arms. The news, in fact, was secondary. His presence was everything.

How should I read the news today? Perhaps in the same way: in my Father’s arms, taking each story to him. Pray for this, Father? Praise you for this mercy, or that one? Bring this known or unknown person into our circle of love and simply hold their needs up to you? Ask for the wisdom and courage to comfort or confront, speak out or keep silent?

I read the news, and my heart fails. But his does not. He sounds out for me the truth behind the headlines and reminds me that the last word will be his.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

Romans 8:18-19, ESV