It’s a besetting sin for journalists: We tend to look for ways the world is getting worse. And it’s a natural disposition for many Christians as well. We’re inclined to notice the bad while taking for granted the good.

That’s why I was chastened and moved by the book Factfulness, reviewed recently for TGC. Before he died, author Hans Rosling traveled the world telling us how much better we’re doing: Fewer of us die of preventable diseases. More people have escaped abject poverty. Publicly available reports from the United Nations tell the story.

Rosling explains that things can still be bad but better than they were. Take, for example, race relations in the United States. It can be a problem even as we observe progress made over the last 50 to 100 years. I think if we understood that bad/better perspective on a host of issues, we’d live with more gratefulness to God, love for neighbor, and appreciation of life.