Better Days Are Coming

The world seems like it's out of joint.  There's so much news to alarm us and many ways to hear it.  

As a young man, I believed the world would be different than it is today.  I thought there would be peace and unity.  I believed that we would have cured cancer by now, found a way to stop the exploitation of the planet, and a whole host of utopian dreams. 

I also imagined that there would be more tolerance, acceptance, and harmony.  

Instead, there is less of any of the things I  mentioned, and instead of pouring resources into solving the world's problems, we pour them into things that exacerbate them. 

And yet, there is still hope.  I still have hope.  

Sometimes you hear a song that just gets into your head, and you can't get it out.  I think it's a tragic turn of events when that song is "The Macarena," or any Meghan Trainor song.  

If you disagree with me, that's fine.  Feel free to insert your least favorite earworm song here___________________. 

But sometimes, a song that matters gets into your head, and you play it on repeat because it means something to you.  There's a message you relate to in the lyrics, the music, or both.  

I had such a song in my head recently.  It's the song "Better Days" by singer/songwriter Dermot Kennedy.  Here's the stanza that grabbed me: 

We never miss the flowers
Until the sun's down
We never count the hours
Until they're runnin' out
You're on the other side of the storm now
You should be so proud
And better days are comin'
Better days are comin' for you

In this song, the singer tells a friend that whatever they have gone through will not get the best of them.  He wants them to know that even though they may have thought the hard days would never end, better days are coming. 

This is a song that many of us need to hear right now.  

God's way of saving the world is slow and subtle at times, and then there are moments when something beautiful breaks through suddenly, even though it has been building for a long time. 

New life comes, but only through great pain.  We experience the contractions of the birth of the new in what seems at times like painful, prolonged discomfort.  But it's the discomfort that accompanies what comes next.  

And if we are willing to look forward in hope, we can endure the pain that will pass in time.   

Better days are coming.  God is always at work restoring, renewing, and resurrecting even the things we think have been left for dead.  And if we are brave, we can join God in this slow, wonderful work of changing the world. 

It starts within us.  If we choose hope over despair, we will discover that the signs of hope that have been there all along will come into view.  

May it be so for us all.  And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all now and forever.  Amen.