REFLECTION

From Pessimism to Optimism
September 25th, 2008 Posted in Spirituality, Theology
Yesterday morning I read something by David de Forest Burrell
. In reference to another person he wrote, “He talks politics
, and we feel as if the country were going to ruin; business
, and we are sure the bottom has dropped out of the industrial
 world; household matters, and we are convinced that every
 grocer and butcher is a thief; or religion, and we feel that the
 Church is going fast to decay and that God is in desperate
 straights!”

Who is he talking about? It’s not a specific person, just
 someone he calls a pessimist. His words seem to be
 right out of today’s headlines, but they’re not. True, David
de Forest Burrell wrote these words on September 24 but 
the year was 1915! (Companions for the Soul, Robert
 Hudson & Shelley Townsend-Hudson)
Things haven’t changed much in 93 years, have they!
 Today’s headlines about the economy are scary. Both
 presidential candidates have joined forces, and on this
 they completely agree, that things are really messed up
 in our country. We hear them speak on the subject every
 day. It’s difficult to find anything inspiring or funny in the 
paper unless you turn to the comics. The best news during
 the evening newscast comes during the commercial
 when you discover that there is, indeed, relief in a tube
 for hemorrhoid sufferers.
Yes, it’s very easy to be a pessimist in today’s world. It’s
 not that things are not serious, they are. It’s just that it’s
 not hopeless. God is, after all, still on His throne!
 Contrary to the pessimist identified in Burrell’s piece,
 God is NOT in desperate straights! Nothing is beyond hope
 for God. This is good for us to remember when it comes
 to our country and the world, but it’s also good to
 remember when it comes to our individual lives.
You and I face our own difficulties that seem overwhelming
 and challenges that appear to be beyond conquering
. It would be easy to be a pessimist but we don’t have to
 take the easy way out! We can be a divinely inspired
 optimist, which is to say, we can be a person of faith.
 It’s not a faith based on the circumstances or even on
 our ability to cope with them. It’s a faith in God, who
 asks us to consider, “Is anything too hard for me?
” (Jeremiah 32:27) How we answer that question
 determines whether we are ultimately a pessimist
 or an optimist!
Dave