Faith, Hope, Love - Pessimism vs Optimism
From the Book “Marrow” by Elizabeth Lesser….What is hope? It’s not about everything turning out ok. It’s about being ok with whatever happens.
Finding hope when you feel hopeless. Sounds easy enough, but it’s not. There are people out there who make it look easy, but it is my belief, that the majority of us human beings struggle with having hope in the midst of a tragedy or crisis.
I wish that I could say I was an optimist, but I can’t. I do have friends that I love dearly who truly are optimistic in all of life’s circumstances. I look at those friends with a hint of jealousy and also aggravation all rolled up in one.
As a self-proclaimed pesimist, sometimes when my optimistic friends try to “turn my frown upside down” I just really don’t want to hear it. It’s like I want to be the victim and be angry at the cards I was dealt and I want everyone else around me to feel the same way. I think, how dare people have Faith, hope and love.
I recall in the book of Job there comes a time when it is just Job and a few friends sitting in complete silence around a campfire. Stunned, exhausted, at a loss of words for all the bad things that have happened in Jobs life. I have often found myself in that place, exhausted and I have no more words. God will let me sit for a while but then it’s time to get back to my purpose in living and my purpose is to bring as many people I can into Gods presence in this short time I have on this earth. That’s hard to do with no hope, faith or love. I must set aside my pessimistic attitude and focus my thoughts and my heart on God.
Psalm 62: 1-2 I stand silently before the Lord, waiting for him to rescue me. For salvation comes from him alone. Yes, he alone is my rock, my rescuer, defense and fortress. Why then should I be tense with fear when trouble comes? Do you think the hopelessness feeling usually follows in fearful situation? I do. I can remember going into my darkest moments of life that started out just with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of me not being in control. Things went from fear to me losing faith because fear and faith are opposites, you can’t function in faith if you are functioning in fear. After fear has set in and made itself at home, hopelessness comes to help decorate and stay for a while.
Sometimes I get comfortable in the darkness and by choice I begin to push away love. Love from my family, love from my optimistic friends, love from God. For whatever reason, I become content with the darkness and I shut out the warm rays of love and hunker down for a while.
I go into this denial stage. Somehow in my mind I make sense of it all. If I just stay miserable in the darkness all alone long enough my heart won’t break, a friend won’t die, or whatever circumstance is going on that pushed me into the darkness will cease to exist. But that isn’t how life works. Yes, we can decide at any time to check out mentally to try and spare our hearts from heartbreak but the world keeps spinning. Life marches on. Me checking out mentally doesn’t change any situation for the better.
Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. The scripture says, joyful in hope, not depressed silently in hope but joyful in hope. If fear and faith cannot live together I suppose joy or hope and depression or hopelessness cannot live together either. For a self-proclaimed pessimist as myself those are hard words to write and understand.
The words I started with have helped me…What is hope? It’s not about everything turning out okay. It’s about being okay with whatever happens. It’s about believing.
2 Timothy 1:7 God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. It’s about being convinced of Romans 8:38-39 I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t and life can’t the angels can’t and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away.
If you find that fear has moved in and hopelessness is coming to decorate make the decision to follow God’s promises. Pack your bags and follow his rays of light and love. Refuse to live in the darkness, keep moving forward. Even when the pessimist wants to take over, allow the joyful optimist to sing.