Say Yes!
Topic Affirmation
Keywords
The editors of a big city newspaper decided to do a series of articles on "The Typical Small Town In America." The reporters and photographers descended upon the subject town to gather their material. While conducting interviews with various local citizens they came upon the oldest inhabitant -- a 97-year-old man. One of the reporters said to the old man, "I suppose you have seen many changes in this town during your lifetime!" Whereupon he replied, "Yep, and I've been against every gosh darn one of them." Unfortunately, this reflects the very common contemporary attitude of being down on life. With the air filled with talk of spiraling taxes and the high cost of living and the massive problems in the cities and the problems of continuing warfare and the nuclear threat and the young people's irresponsibility and the older people's unwillingness to listen, and on-and-on until we're tempted to get ourselves into a mood of opposition to the movement of life -- and we're against every gosh darn thing that comes along. And before we know it, we've identified with the playwright who says that life is really "A long day's journey into night." It is very tempting in our time to say "No!" to life, and many people have yielded to the temptation. That is why it is good to remind ourselves that the Bible is a book of affirmation and that Jesus was a "Yes!" man, in this sense. The Biblical writers affirm life in many beautiful [...]
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