Posts Tagged ‘Body of Christ’
Necessarily Negative
Was Jesus an optimist or a pessimist?
Surely He was an optimist, right? After all… isn’t that the more “desirable” of the two possibilities? Being God and all, He must have been whatever is considered superior. Our American culture values the extravert and the optimist. And there’s a Christian sub-culture that teaches that all Christians should be optimists. (“Because of the hope that we have…”)
But I don’t think so. Rather, I contend that Jesus was the one and only person who could be a dead-center realist. Read More
Or….
Sometimes you just need someone else to see it for you.
Pessimists need optimists. (And I’m thinking the converse is true, too… more on that later.) I need the optimists in my life as counterbalance to my natural pessimism. In many ways, I think this is the ministry of the Body: that what my eyes don’t naturally see, another’s do. Twice in the last couple of weeks I’ve been the beneficiary of my friends’ perspectives:
- Pessimist (me): “I’m a little bummed. Only thirty ladies signed up for my Bible study. About 50 signed up for the other one currently being offered.” (Subtext: they must not like me.)
- Optimist (Julie): “Or, you could rejoice that 80 women are studying the Bible this fall…” Read More