Are you a realist or an optimist? Someone may ask you this question, and you may believe you must choose. Either you see the world as it is--a place where infants die, women are raped, children are molested, and families separate--or you distract yourself into believing the world is peachy. I would argue that neither is going to work out too well. One who denies the truth is going to make grave mistakes. Try to deny gravity for a while and the result could be ugly. Conversely, the one that accepts the nastiness of the world as "just the way it has to be" may become cold and cynical.
The world is a nasty place for the secularist. How do you stare into the face of a molested child and stay optimistic if this world is really all there is? I suppose the secularist could pin his hopes on the belief that humanity is learning from its mistakes and is getting better. I guess we could just call the genocides of the 20th century growing pains. "We simply didn't comprehend the power of our new technologies", one may say. This is a valid point, but does learning from our mistakes truly fix everything?
Maybe we are getting better at avoiding public atrocities, maybe not. Regardless of our public performance, we are still terrible in our private matters. Man has had millenia to practice treating his wife and kids well and is still pathetic at it.
There is truly something wrong with the world. It cannot be denied. The most troubling thing is: WE are the wrong. It's hard to be an optimist if you believe man is the supreme being when man does not possess the capacity to fix the problem of the universe.
If we could truly cure ourselves, we should be making a lot more progress. A people that can probe the depths of space should have already cured the evils of this world by now--if it was possible. Is there not a pill, app, or meditation technique for thinking only pure thoughts? Would someone please launch a start-up devoted to such? This would be a sizable IPO.
The trouble is, this isn't possible. We can't fix ourselves. Go attempt creating a perfect nation and you just might kill all of the people that get in the way of your vision. Believing we can completely fix ourselves can get ugly. Setting our sights on earthly utopias has consistently led to dystopias. Can anyone, if focused on all the facts, truly be an optimist in such a world?
I think so. In fact, I think an optimist and realist is precisely what the man with an eye on all the facts. This is because looking at all the facts involves staring straight at Jesus' cross. You see, Jesus' death on the cross informs us that sin is really more disgusting than we could have imagined. No matter how despicable you believe adultery is, God is more disgusted. No matter how despicable you believe child pornography is, God is more disgusted--so disgusted that God came to die on the cross. But it doesn't stop with the depravity of sin, the cross illuminates the love of God and His plan to restore everything.
Yes, other religions recognize that something is wrong with the world and present a hope of a new life to come, but no religion takes the problem as seriously as Christianity and not all of the choices can be true. Each choice can have components of the truth, but only one can be completely true. There cannot be both 300 gods and 1 God. Both facts cannot be true.
But it is mighty tempting to believe one can mix and match religions. "I like this part about God loving me, I'll take that." "I especially like the part about God not caring what I do and only being here to serve me, I'll take that as well." The trouble is, you didn't create the universe, therefore, you don't get to choose what is ultimately true. Instead of picking and choosing do some research and live according to the truth you find. I hope you will come to the same conclusion I have: Jesus Christ lived, died, and was resurrected in modern-day Israel about 2000 years ago. If this is true, none of the other choices deserve consideration. Jesus claimed exclusivity, do not give Him anything less.
If you do give Jesus everything, you will receive the freedom to be an optimist and a realist, the optimistic realist. You see, when you examine the cross Jesus died upon, you realize that this evil (sin) that has been messed up the world is even worse than you thought. You have not been feeling a false sense of guilt all this time; there is really right and wrong. The wrong is, in fact, so wrong that God the Father determined it important enough to send God the Son to die for it. Those things that do not sit well with you--rape, child molestation, genocide--are more despicable than you could have imagined. God once looked at our sins and considered them so repugnant that He flooded the earth. There is a real standard to which our actions and thoughts are to be measured. Each of our sins are real. Stealing is absolutely wrong. So is murder. So is adultery. So is greed. Be a realist.
Do not be a pessimistic realist though. Yes, the cross shines a floodlight on our sin, but it also shines a light of infinite magnitude on God's love for mankind. You, if a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, are free to live as the greatest optimist and realist. That thing that you know is wrong is really despicably wrong, but that God that you sense may be there loves you more than you can imagine.
Go forth and stare into the face of sin with a lens of assurance. Mourn and be sorrowful about the next kidnapping you read about. Know that God hates that kidnapping more than you do. Do not fear the sin though, the God that created the universe has already defeated it. However, in His wisdom He has let sin have some freedom a little longer. In this time, may you, your loved ones, and everyone else become an optimistic realist.
The world is a nasty place for the secularist. How do you stare into the face of a molested child and stay optimistic if this world is really all there is? I suppose the secularist could pin his hopes on the belief that humanity is learning from its mistakes and is getting better. I guess we could just call the genocides of the 20th century growing pains. "We simply didn't comprehend the power of our new technologies", one may say. This is a valid point, but does learning from our mistakes truly fix everything?
Maybe we are getting better at avoiding public atrocities, maybe not. Regardless of our public performance, we are still terrible in our private matters. Man has had millenia to practice treating his wife and kids well and is still pathetic at it.
There is truly something wrong with the world. It cannot be denied. The most troubling thing is: WE are the wrong. It's hard to be an optimist if you believe man is the supreme being when man does not possess the capacity to fix the problem of the universe.
If we could truly cure ourselves, we should be making a lot more progress. A people that can probe the depths of space should have already cured the evils of this world by now--if it was possible. Is there not a pill, app, or meditation technique for thinking only pure thoughts? Would someone please launch a start-up devoted to such? This would be a sizable IPO.
The trouble is, this isn't possible. We can't fix ourselves. Go attempt creating a perfect nation and you just might kill all of the people that get in the way of your vision. Believing we can completely fix ourselves can get ugly. Setting our sights on earthly utopias has consistently led to dystopias. Can anyone, if focused on all the facts, truly be an optimist in such a world?
I think so. In fact, I think an optimist and realist is precisely what the man with an eye on all the facts. This is because looking at all the facts involves staring straight at Jesus' cross. You see, Jesus' death on the cross informs us that sin is really more disgusting than we could have imagined. No matter how despicable you believe adultery is, God is more disgusted. No matter how despicable you believe child pornography is, God is more disgusted--so disgusted that God came to die on the cross. But it doesn't stop with the depravity of sin, the cross illuminates the love of God and His plan to restore everything.
Yes, other religions recognize that something is wrong with the world and present a hope of a new life to come, but no religion takes the problem as seriously as Christianity and not all of the choices can be true. Each choice can have components of the truth, but only one can be completely true. There cannot be both 300 gods and 1 God. Both facts cannot be true.
But it is mighty tempting to believe one can mix and match religions. "I like this part about God loving me, I'll take that." "I especially like the part about God not caring what I do and only being here to serve me, I'll take that as well." The trouble is, you didn't create the universe, therefore, you don't get to choose what is ultimately true. Instead of picking and choosing do some research and live according to the truth you find. I hope you will come to the same conclusion I have: Jesus Christ lived, died, and was resurrected in modern-day Israel about 2000 years ago. If this is true, none of the other choices deserve consideration. Jesus claimed exclusivity, do not give Him anything less.
If you do give Jesus everything, you will receive the freedom to be an optimist and a realist, the optimistic realist. You see, when you examine the cross Jesus died upon, you realize that this evil (sin) that has been messed up the world is even worse than you thought. You have not been feeling a false sense of guilt all this time; there is really right and wrong. The wrong is, in fact, so wrong that God the Father determined it important enough to send God the Son to die for it. Those things that do not sit well with you--rape, child molestation, genocide--are more despicable than you could have imagined. God once looked at our sins and considered them so repugnant that He flooded the earth. There is a real standard to which our actions and thoughts are to be measured. Each of our sins are real. Stealing is absolutely wrong. So is murder. So is adultery. So is greed. Be a realist.
Do not be a pessimistic realist though. Yes, the cross shines a floodlight on our sin, but it also shines a light of infinite magnitude on God's love for mankind. You, if a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, are free to live as the greatest optimist and realist. That thing that you know is wrong is really despicably wrong, but that God that you sense may be there loves you more than you can imagine.
Go forth and stare into the face of sin with a lens of assurance. Mourn and be sorrowful about the next kidnapping you read about. Know that God hates that kidnapping more than you do. Do not fear the sin though, the God that created the universe has already defeated it. However, in His wisdom He has let sin have some freedom a little longer. In this time, may you, your loved ones, and everyone else become an optimistic realist.
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