Dear Faith Family,
Being optimistic and living in hope is not the same thing.
I know perpetually cheerful people and others who have never met an issue that could not be turned into something positive. Do you know anyone like that? For some of these fine folks, their sunny disposition and superficial optimism are defense mechanisms or simple naivete, but not for all of them. Some have the gift of brightsidedness that is needed in a world maligned with darkness, especially when the Spirit employs their gift in moments of "mourning with those who mourn and rejoicing with those who rejoice." But for those of us who lack such a gift and who desire not to shield ourselves from the world as it is, how are we to live?
It doesn't take a long look around to lose optimism for our country and culture. Old sins continue to oppress and divide. New sins make everyone with a phone, judge, jury, and cancelor. We've politicized a pandemic and have lost the ability for civil discourse, not to mention listening with empathy. What exactly do we have to be optimistic about?
We are not the first to recognize the brokenness of our current state and loose optimism for its future. In a 1997 Frontline interview, Harvard professor, Dr. Cornel West was asked if he had any optimism about our nation's trajectory. His reply is honest and compelling,
"I am not optimistic, but I've never been optimistic about humankind or America. The evidence never looks good in terms of forces for good actually becoming prominent. But, I am a prisoner of hope, and that's very different. I believe that we do have signs of hope, and that the evidence is underdetermined. We have to make a leap of faith beyond the evidence and try to energize one another so we can accent the best in one another. But that is what being a prisoner of hope is all about."
I think Dr. West describes well the power of biblical hope. A hope that does not dismiss the weight of the world. A hope that does not deny the evidence and effects of dysfunction. And yet, a hope that sees beyond the evidence, peering through it and emphasizing what is too easily overlooked: God's image and perseverance.
Imprisoned by such hope, we cannot help but see with sobriety and live with steadfastness. Neither being superficially optimistic nor without the confidence to continue.
There is often little evidence to encourage optimism for this or any age. Good thing hope does not require us to be optimistic. So faith family, may we be prisoners of hope, "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." (Gal. 6:9)
Love you. God bless.