What’s your World View ?

What’s your World View ?

Recently a young woman, who had received our last Marriage KIT from a friend, wrote regarding our dependence on God, and in the course of e-mail discussions over the past few days it became apparent that her faith and most of her thoughts are pessimistic and negative.  She sees mostly trouble in the future, and finds it easy to blame others for her lot in life.

I’ve prayerfully pondered each response to her, giving her passages of hope from God’s word, wanting her to connect hope with God.  In Dr. John Trent’s LifeMapping, he offers the comparison of Life and Death – and they tie so appropriately to pessimism -vs- an optomistic hope.   One of the meanings of the word ‘life’ in the Greek is ‘movement toward something’, while the word ‘death’ means ‘to step away’.  Pessimism and negativity easily and often bring death to our hope.

John says pessimism is a lifestyle choice.  It often leads to procrastination and fear – (fear of – failure, success, being controlled and intimacy).  It also leads to hopelessness, which is also learned, rather than innate.   Pessimism and hopelessness are often learned in the hard times in our lives, and understandably make relationships difficult.  The delusional and hope creating brain chemical cocktail of early romance will fade, and if pessimism becomes the lifestyle choice of one or both partners, it makes the marriage much harder work than normal.

On the other hand, hope easily leads to a more authentic and joy filled life – and allows relationships to grow toward one another, instead of away from each other. John also believes that hopefulness is learned.  Larry Crabb suggests though, that for the believer there is in our soul a God placed tug toward a deeper relationship with God – and that HOPE is the result of responding to that tug.  Because hope, not pessimism, is God’s plan, it comes easier for us to learn and is a choice we make taking us toward  healthy environments, where hopelessness is always learned in the harsh unhealthy things of life.

God’s tells us in Jeremiah 29:11 that His plan for our lives is good – filled with hope for the future.

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.’ Jer 29:11-13

It’s not unusual for one of us in a marriage to be the more hopeful one, as all of us fall somewhere on the continuum between the two.

Hopeless ————————————————————— Hopeful

Marriage is designed by God to be a relationship that moves us toward each other, giving life, and hope.   The more hopeful of the two can do much to create that healthy environment for their marriage where pessimism is replaced by optomism and hope, by practicing an active trust in God, believing in a positive future, showing great self control and making hope filled choices themselves.   For the spouse that has learned a more pessimistic outlook on life, the choice is clear also.

It is God’s desire that we call on Him, praying for that change in us that brings us into a deeper and a life more aligned with God’s will for our lives.   Wherever and whenever that pessimism trait sneaks into our thinking, we can rebuke it with God’s word, and prayerfully ask God to help us want to want the change to a more hope filled life.

Heb 6:19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast… 1Pe 1:13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.