Are Christians Optimists?

 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11

I once heard someone say, “As for man, I’m a pessimist. But as for God, I’m wildly optimistic.”That’s something to ponder isn’t it? The world seems to have a more optimistic view of man than the Bible does. The prevailing culture claims that within man is all the light we need—we just need to harness it. The Bible’s view of man is not that we are sinful as we could be, but that rather, sin touches every part of us. This is why the Puritans in particular, who I mentioned a few posts ago, are often accused of being too severe. Charles Spurgeon, commenting on John Bunyan said of him, “The man is a walking Bible—prick him and he bleeds bibline.” It seems that those who are most acquainted with Scripture come to understand that the heart of man is a heart of darkness. But God, whom the Apostle John refers to as light without darkness has lit us up and continues to crank the wattage.

The hope of Jeremiah 29:11, the kind of verse you might find on a bumper sticker in Mobile, Alabama isn’t a promise to Judah that everything was going to go swimmingly in the near term. Exile in Babylon would be their reality because of their idolatry and disobedience. It would do no good for Jeremiah to send God’s people in Exile a shipment of rose-colored Ray Bans. They needed to hear the truth about their sin. I think what we often call pessimism is really just a strong dose of realism. They needed to be pieced by the two-edged sword of God’s Spirit and His Word, that they might turn back to Him again. And that’s where the optimism comes in. For the contrite and lowly, wherever God is, so is hope. God has plans for His people.

While we wait for His return, we have hope that the future he’s promised to us will come to pass. The question is, are we willing to wait for it? And do we know that apart from God, we ought to be helplessly pessimistic. But because we have God, or rather, He has us, we can be wildly optimistic about our future with Him. As for man apart from God—there’s nothing to be hopeful about. But man with God? Even us? You should hear about His plans for you. They’re utterly breathtaking.