One of my biggest enjoyments of the months just past was reading the book "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes, a recent bestseller about two people who find themselves in a difficult relationship. It happened repeatedly in the story that when they were in a particular difficult moment in their journey together, one would turn to the other and say, "Tell me something good." The resulting conversation would take their minds off their current heartache and focus it instead on happier times, replacing the current pain with thoughts of hope and joy.
Perhaps I loved that line so much in the book because we have the same opportunity in our relationship with God. On our most difficult days we can turn to Him with the plea, "Tell me something good!", and He responds with chapters of love and promises to come, written to us and kept for us to find in His Word. Or He sends friends to share His "Good News" in the form of hugs or favors, just when we need to be reminded of His love the most. Perhaps He just sends The Comforter Himself to allow us to feel His touch and presence in something we see or experience in the world around us.
But I realized recently that God makes the same request of us. On our loneliest or most pain-filled days, God is not oblivious to what we're going through. He comes alongside us and whispers gently, "Tell ME something good!"...because He knows that if we verbally rehearse what He's done for us in the past, repeat aloud what He's promised us in the future, or speak our thanks to Him for the blessings that abound even in our pain-filled present, we can't help but have our faith restored and our hearts filled to overflow with hope and joy once more.
May those words be our mantra as we march into Fall, then...that we make it our business to daily tell God something good, and then listen and receive what He surely will say to us in response.
"Even though troubles came down on me hard, your commands always gave me delight. The way you tell me to live is always right; help me understand it so I can live to the fullest."
(Psalm 119: 143-144 MSG)
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