Steve West: Be of good courage

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming up next, WORLD commentator Steve West has an encouraging word after a visit to a beach cafe.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: Maria, our server at the restaurant, is radiant. “I won’t be working here as much,” she offers. “I have an internship.” She says it like it’s the best job in the world. “I get to work outside and meet people.” She smiles broadly.

“You’ll be good at that,” I say. I envy her zest for life. My wife is intentional about remembering names of servers, typing them into her smartphone with some clue about their appearance—short, brown hair, smile. But I have gotten modestly better at valuing people, particularly those who serve: Sometimes I look up, catch their eyes, smile, ask about their day.

We’re here together because I took the day off. We drove east this morning, toward the beaches. With the city in my exhaust, stress fell away. And so here we are at our favorite hamburger spot, thinking about kayaking.

“Can I refill your drink?” asks Maria.

“I think I’m OK for now,” I say. I peer over the edge of my cup. It’s nearly full. Yet she’s excited about refilling my drink. “Thanks, Maria.” She springs away. She returns, repeatedly, until I down four cups of iced tea and accumulate a stack of empty artificial sweetener packets which, I know, I know, cause all kinds of terrible things, according to the internet. But I can only work on one problem at a time. First I need to remember peoples’ names.

One name I haven't forgotten--a friend I talked to the day before. He labors under the consequences of bad decisions. He labors under, things Maria likely hasn’t lived long enough to see. I gave him the strongest thing I could, a prayerful coda to our talk.

I don’t know what animates Maria’s good cheer, whether a natural predisposition to optimism or Christ indwelling. Yet I am thankful. There’s a lot wrong in the world. Underneath the happy veneer of distraction, many are anxious. In these times, writer Denis Haack suggests, “[i]t might be wise to resurrect a biblical greeting that was used when God’s people faced uncertain times - ‘Be of good courage.’”

Or, because “courage” actually derives from the Latin word “cor,” which means “heart,” I want to say to my friend, and to myself, “Take heart. Sin casts a long shadow over your life and that of others, and not everything can be mended here. Yet all is not lost. Like a flower pushing up through the earth, if you stay rooted, you too will rise up and bear fruit.

Leaving the restaurant, I let the screen door slap behind me, and hearing it I recall the door on my childhood home which echoes through the years, a little root reaching back into the good soil of those years. I reach out and take my wife’s hand, which is connected to her heart, and I feel a little more courage that one day all disappointment will end.

I’m Steve West.

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