RESOLVE TO BE OPTIMISTIC IN 2009
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28)
Somewhere right at the top of your resolutions for the New Year (You do have resolutions written down for the New Year don’t you?) should be the resolve that we are going to be as optimistic about everything, as often as possible throughout all of 2009. This isn’t to say that we don’t need to be informed or that we shouldn’t be concerned about negative things, but it does mean that we can’t afford to let ourselves become immersed in the negative to the point that our lives become overwhelmingly influenced by the negative. Giving too much of the wrong kind of attention to anything negative burns up energy that we need to right wrongs, make things better, etc. Here are three reasons why you ought to be optimistic all year long in 2009:
LIVING OPTIMISTICALLY THROUGHOUT THE NEW YEAR IS POSSIBLE. Why live optimistically throughout 2009? Because you can! This is especially true because you are a believer (This article is addressed to believers). Romans 8:28 means what it says. All things really do work together for good to them that love God. The only thing that can be brought into question here is whether or not you believe God’s Word or whether or not your relationship with God is what it ought to be in terms or how much you really love God and are demonstrating your love for Him. (See Rom. 3:4; John 14:15, 21).
Are you thinking that it’s just not your “way” to be optimistic; that you lean more to being pessimistic? Then change the way you are! What has your pessimism and negativity gotten you? The answer is: Nothing good! It isn’t honoring to God and it isn’t helpful to you or to anyone else. You can change. You can choose to live optimistically throughout this New Year.
The apostle Paul wrote, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philp. 4:13). You can be a thoroughly optimistic person. God will strengthen you for this. He will not strengthen you to be more negative and pessimistic (This is the devil’s department), but He will strengthen you to be more positive and have more godly optimism radiating in your life. Now is the time, not only for you to start thinking seriously about this, but for you to get started living this way.
LIVING OPTIMISTICALLY THROUGHOUT THE NEW YEAR IS PREFERABLE. It’s a million times better to live optimistically than to live with a tendency toward the negative view of, and the negative response to, things. Winston Churchill once said, “I am an optimist. It does not seem much use to be anything else.” For the Christian, it is perhaps not too far afield to say that it is of no use whatsoever to live pessimistically! Samuel Johnson, one of the most productive and popular men England ever produced said, “The habit of looking on the bright side of everything is worth more than ten thousand pounds a year.”
When you think, see or hear something that isn’t good, first, be thankful that you can discern between what is good and what is bad. Then, start thinking immediately about what you might be able to do to turn something negative around to where it becomes something positive, or at least more positive. You’ll feel better at the time, and you’ll feel better at the end of the day that you chose to respond to pessimism, to negativity, in an optimistic, positive way.
All year long in 2009, every day, in every way, look for opportunities (in the big things and the little things) to think and act optimistically. This is the best way, the preferred way for you to live. It’s the way God prefers you to live, the way others would prefer that you live, and the way you’ll find that you, yourself will prefer to live.
LIVING OPTIMISTICALLY THROUGHOUT THE NEW YEAR WILL BE POWERFUL. Taking the optimistic, positive approach to life every day and in every way possible will result in a daily and an accumulative reward for you. Apply optimism to your marriage and home, to your church life, in your work place and to your business, and see what happens! During the year and at the end of the year everything will be better, much better, than it will be if you choose to do anything other than make a daily, deliberate attempt to be an optimistic, positive, happy-minded, good natured person.
Someone has rightly said, “Things work out best for the people who make the best out of the way things work out.” The way to make the best out of what has worked out, or is at work right now in your life; the way to make the most, to God’s glory and to your own and other’s good, out of what may be ahead for you is to deal powerfully with it, with an optimistic, positive spirit such as Paul had when he wrote: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13, 14).
Helen Keller was blind, but she could see some things that people with 20/20 vision are never able to see. She said, “If the outlook is not good, try the up-look. It’s always good.” The famous poet, Robert Browning wrote, “I hold not with the pessimist that all things are ill, nor with the optimist that all things are well. All things are not well, but all things shall be well, because this is God’s world.” More importantly, our God has promised us that, “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Let’s believe this and live like we believe it throughout all of the New Year. |
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