My roommate and I have joked before about how she is a pessimist and I am an optimist. She takes a hard look at what is going wrong in a situation, and I tend to focus on what is going right. One day we were having a conversation with a friend and we mentioned this difference, and he said that he felt like followers of God shouldn’t aim to be pessimists or optimists but rather people of hope, able to acknowledge the darkness and evil in this life but still maintain hope in a God who saves. I came across this quote in an article on urbana.org and it reminded me of that conversation:
"And I came to understand that God challenged me to move beyond pessimism and to confront unrealistic optimism. I came to understand that biblical hope in Jesus makes me an incredible realist. It goes to the world of pain, and sits with people in their pain and their suffering, and tries to understand the illusions that people grasp hold of, and lovingly challenges them."
No comments:
Post a Comment