CHRISTIANS ARE PESSIMISTS, and content to be so.
Not all. Maybe not most. But many.
They look at the world and say all is as it should be, given the fallen nature of human beings.
Like the rest of us, these Christians see:
- narcissistic political leaders with the morals of a donut hole
- nukes on the loose, with more on the roll
- raiders hacking their way into our past, present, and future
- earth in a heat wave, with our leaders throwing gas and coal on the fire
- guns in the college classroom and profs wearing bullet-proof vests
What else should we expect?
We’re a race of sinners. Sin is what we do best. It’s normal to live in a world of selfishness, greed, and corruption.
Well, it might be for those Christians who believe in Jesus, but not so much in what he taught.
For Christians who actually try to follow the teachings of Jesus, the world in which we live is not our normal.
It’s not something to which we should acclimate.
It’s not at all a reality we should silently accept.
Optimists at work
Christian optimists might agree with me when I say we are the voice of those calling in the badlands,
“Get ready, the LORD is coming.
Plow the road.” (Luke 3:4, Casual English Bible)
John the Baptist plowed the road in his day.
He talked so much about what it means to be God’s people that he got his head handed to someone else on a platter.
Since then, the LORD came and went.
But the Bible teaches that his Spirit stayed here with us.
This is not a world fit for God’s Spirit.
This is a world with a road that needs plowed.
Jewish Queen of Iran
Once there was a Jewish queen in what is now Iran: Esther. When Persians there were about to unleash a holocaust on her fellow Jews throughout the empire, Esther stayed silent. Afraid to speak up.
Her cousin Mordecai shook the voice out of her by saying that perhaps God put her there “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
God’s people were given a voice for a reason.
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