Agents Of Hope, Not Optimism by Kim Reisman

Scripture Focus:

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done. O Lord, what great works you do! And how deep are your thoughts. Only a simpleton would not know, and only a fool would not understand this: Though the wicked sprout like weeds and evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. But you, O Lord, will be exalted forever.

Psalm 92:1-8 (NLT)

One of the easiest mistakes to make when talking about hope is to confuse it with optimism. Optimism isn’t a bad thing; however, it is dramatically different than hope.

Optimists understand the world in basically positive terms. They have confidence about the future and believe things will work out well. This positivity can be helpful on a variety of levels. And yet, at its core, optimism assumes that our best efforts will produce proportionately good results. Optimists place their faith in human progress to fix all that is broken. Unfortunately, history shows us the fallacy of that thinking. Certainly, much progress has been made in the 20^th and now the 21^st centuries. And more progress is sure to come. However, none of this progress has come without a price – a price that often involves new brokenness in new places.

Hope on the other hand, is altogether different. Hope recognizes that progress and goodness are not inevitable. Hope recognizes that the unredeemed nature of creation doesn’t fully correspond to God, rather, it’s a world subject to sin, suffering, and death. And yet, hope trusts the resurrection promise of a reality that WILL correspond to God.

Optimism isn’t essential to understanding the kingdom of God. But hope is, because hope recognizes that when God’s kingdom comes in its fullness, all of creation will be restored, not just humanity. Hope understands that while God’s kingdom has been inaugurated in Jesus, it hasn’t yet come in all its fullness. The world is not yet fully redeemed. And yet, hope rooted in the resurrection enables our understanding of future victory to transform our present reality, even if that transformation isn’t readily visible.

As Christians, we are agents of hope, not optimism. We live with the confidence that God is alive and sovereign. We trust that, in ways we may not understand, God is at work, and one day will establish God’s kingdom in all its fullness and all things will be made new. In the meantime, because of that hope, we join the psalmist in proclaiming God’s love in the morning and God’s faithfulness at night.

As you pray and fast, I will be praying that you will discover ways in which you might be an agent of hope, living and relating to others with assured confidence that God’s promise to make all things new is even now coming to fruition.