Point of view

I've gotten some interesting reactions to my sermon on pessimism. Several people have stopped me to say that what I call pessimism, they call realism. This is a common way of thinking, and it is a way to avoid the hard work of disciplining your mind. What we call realism can actually be unbelief.

Realism in Christian thinking is very important. There is no room in faith for illusions, fantasies, or make-believe. If something is bad, you have to call it bad. If something is not working, you have to see it as broken. If a behavior is destructive, you have to call it out. No one is served when anything that is true is being ignored.

Realism assesses what is, but then there is a choice. Is transformation possible, or not? Can God do something new, or not? To move from realism to pessimism is easy. To move from realism to hope is not.

The source of hope for us is the sufficiency of God's grace. Grace is always the biggest surprise of faith. Grace breaks through in seemingly hopeless situations. Your faith is not full grown if you have never experienced the goodness of God in the midst of a bad situation. Hope is the firm conviction that God can always do something new and unexpected.

If my eyes are only on what is around me, then I can easily be a pessimist. Only by raising my eyes to things I can't yet see can I be lifted beyond reality to hope. Our world needs people of faith to be hopeful, and live that out.

Can you be that?