All tagged Optimism
I grew up in a tradition that generally believed that the world was getting worse. The idea was in the atmosphere. It was also explicitly taught as coming from the Bible. There would be teaching series from the pulpit on Bible prophecy and what to expect for the future. It was always pretty negative. And depending on whether you believed in a pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture, you would have varying levels of anxiety regarding your future. But rarely ever hope.
No one had precedent or capacity to expect the resurrection. But it happened. And now that one event re-defines everything (power, love, freedom), speaks to everything (ego, insecurity, sin, woundedness) and calls us upward into the kind of people we are meant to be (hope-filled, dreamers, servants, lovers). If death can be undone, if the greatest glory can emerge from the ashes of the hugest defeat, then how are we to look at our light and momentary problems? Grieve them? Definitely. And then wait five minutes, “Lazarus, come out!” Or three days, “He is not here; he has risen.” Grief will be dissolved away by the breakthrough of resurrection that follows. All tears will be turned into laughter. All mourning into dancing.
