Your ShelfYour Projects

BE AN OPTIMIST

6%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 6, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 32.

Read the full edition

BE AN OPTIMIST.

By A. J. B.

That individual is a true optimist who looks at the bright side of life, and who believes that eventually everything will turn out for the best. His exact opposite is the person who sees nothing worth living for, whose continual reply is, “What is the use?” or, in other words, the pessimist. The terms “optimist” and “pessimist” are derived from the Latin superlatives optimus, meaning “the best,” and pessimus, meaning “the worst.”
The optimist is always hopeful, though he does not ignore the seamy side of life. His eyes are riveted to the true, the honest, the just, the pure, the lovely things in life; to the things of good report. He is the aggressive man, the one who does things. He is ever full of hope, courage, and energy. While the pessimist consumes valuable time in trying to prove that a thing cannot possibly be done, or that, if done, it will not be worth the while, the optimist actually does that very thing, and glories in having accomplished something. The optimist works hard, and smiles. The pessimist does nothing, and scowls. Yet, of the two, the pessimist will die the sooner; for, in the words of George Macdonald, “It is not the cares of to-day, but the cares of to-morrow, that weigh a man down;” and, as Beecher well said: “It is not work that kills men. It is worry.” The pessimist is a great worrier. The optimist is a great worker. He has no time to worry; for he is hard at work, with an aim in view.
Every true Christian is an optimist. He is an optimist, not because he believes that everything in this world is perfect, or just, or proper, but he is an optimist in spite of all the evils that surround him. The optimist is the salt of the earth. He is that essence which keeps what is about him from corrupting, from losing heart and being undone through lost hope. Jesus was the true optimist. The little children gladly flocked to Him because they found reflected in His face and manners their own spirit of buoyancy and good cheer. Had Jesus not been the optimist that He was, the children would have shunned Him. It was His lovable traits of character that attracted the little ones, and not any physical beauty which He possessed. For, speaking of Christ, the prophet Isaiah (chapter 53) says that He grew “as a root out of dry ground;” that He had no “form nor comeliness;” and that “when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” And yet how often, during His ministry, “Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them.” No pessimist could thus have won the hearts of the little ones.
Pessimism is darkness, ennui, and despair. Optimism is light, activity, and hope. Jesus bids His followers to be children of the light. He says (John 12:46): “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” The last words of the farewell sermon of the Master to His disciples are the words of the true optimist: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: BUT BE OF GOOD CHEER; I have overcome the world.” Homeless as He was in the world, and persecuted by those who should have been His friends, still He was an optimist: He was a fountain of good cheer to all about Him. Although He was “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” yet His sorrow was not a selfish sorrow because of evil done to Him personally, but a pitiful sorrowing for the sinfulness of those who would not let Him save them.
All the suicides recorded in our dailies may be traced to pessimism. In view of this, there is great need of Christian optimism, when so many are given to exaggerating, in thought, the evils of life. It is a great blessing that cheerfulness is as epidemic as melancholy; that joy is as contagious as this false sorrow that is put on. Imagine, for instance, the happy effect, upon a pessimistic neighborhood, of the extreme cheerfulness of Sydney Smith, who, though quite sick at one time, wrote: “I have gout, asthma, and seven other maladies, but am otherwise very well.”
As an illustration of what Carlyle would call “the wondrous strength of cheerfulness,” it is related, by the editor of Success, that “a gentleman in Minneapolis owned a business block which was completely gutted by fire. The misfortune produced a melancholy that boded ill for his mind. In vain his friends tried to cheer him. Nothing could dispel the impenetrable gloom. He was almost on the point of suicide. He was away from home when the disaster occurred, and received the following letter from his little seven-year-old daughter:— “DEAR PAPA: I went down to see your store that was burned, and it looks very pretty all covered with ice. Love and kisses from ‘LILLIAN.’”
So successful was this naive little letter from the little optimist, that “the father smiled as he read; and the man who had contemplated jumping from the train, laughed aloud. The spell that had overshadowed him was at last broken by this ray of sunshine.” Optimism had won the day, and saved a useful life.
One great truth which may be deduced from the lesson Christ taught concerning the man who is constantly seeking for the mote in his brother’s eye, is the fact that this world is pretty much as one looks for it to be. In order to find the bird in the bush, the student of nature must first have the bird in his eye. If one is looking for the dark side of life, he will be sure to find it; while on the other hand, the world will be full of brightness to him who is looking for bright things.
“But,” says a would-be Christian, “don’t you know that this world is very wicked—so wicked that it will soon be destroyed by fire? Don’t you know that the seven last plagues are about to fall? that pestilence is already abroad in the land? that wars and persecutions abound? and that the predicted ‘time of trouble’ is upon us?” To this we reply: Yes, my Christian brother. That is all true. But of what use is your Christianity if these things cause you to be apprehensive, which should trouble only the wicked? Where is your faith in God’s care and protection for His children? Are you not His child? Has He not warned you in time for you to make ample preparations to escape all these evils that are coming to pass? If you do not make Christianity of practical value, of what use can it possibly be to you?
God will certainly destroy this world, even as it is written (2 Peter 3:7) that “the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” But why will God destroy this world?—Simply that He may show His love for His chosen ones by making out of it a much better world. It is essential for the Christian to remember God’s great LOVE as well as His eternal JUSTICE. God takes no delight in the death of any of His creatures,—not even in the death of the wicked (Eze. 33:11), His only desire being “that the wicked turn from his way and live.” The loving Father described in John 3:16, is the same God who lives to-day. He loves His creatures so much that, were it a possible thing for Him to do, He would even open the gates of paradise to every being He has made, good or wicked. He would gladly save, at His coming, many times one hundred and forty-four thousand, were it a thing consistent with His love and justice. If, as the Word says, but few will finally be saved, in proportion to the world’s population, it will not be the fault of our Father. The trouble with Christians who allow themselves to lapse into pessimism, is that they have lost their faith in the goodness of God.
There are other reasons, however, why people become pessimists; and to mention the cause is to point out the remedy. A man’s mental and moral natures are governed, to a great extent, by his physical condition. Dr. Johnson has well said that “every man is a rascal when he is sick;” and William Mathews states the case correctly when he asserts that “a man of the kindliest impulseshas only to feed upon indigestible food for a few days, and forthwith his liver is affected, and then his brain. His sensibilities are blunted; his uneasiness makes him waspish and fretful. He is like a hedgehog with the quills rolled in, and will do and say things from which in health he would have recoiled.” Inasmuch as the Word states that our bodies are the “temple of the Holy Ghost,” it becomes as much of a religious duty for the Christian to obliterate pessimism from his nature by reforming his diet and physical habits, as for him to read his Bible and to pray with zeal. On the contrary, if he refuses to eliminate his physical hindrances to becoming an optimist, his Bible reading and his prayers will avail nothing.
There is one song which should be sung, at least once a day, and with a loud voice, by every family of pessimists in the United States, in England, and in their colonies. It should then be translated into every language spoken by pessimists. Its title is “Count Your Many Blessings.” Besides advising all to count their many blessings, the hymn further exhorts them to “name them one by one;” and the chorus concludes with the words, “Count your many blessings! See what God has done.” We advise that not only every pessimist should learn to sing it, but that every optimist should also learn it, that he may sing it to every pessimist he meets.
Think, first, of the greatest of all your blessings—life itself, the gift of God to you each second. Then think of the disguised blessings that come to you in every evil that you escape. Think of the accidents that have never happened to you; of the number of days in which no disastrous storms have visited your neighborhood. Count the number of good crops you have had—the number of times you have NOT had bad crops! Think of the blessed assurance that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;” or, in other words, that harvest-time is sure to follow seed-time. Think also of God’s promise made to man immediately after the flood, and repeated to this hour in His countless rainbows, in language intelligible to all nations: “Neither shall ALL flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.” Gen. 9:11. At that time also the Lord decided that the first curse which had been placed upon the earth after the fall of man, was sufficient; for in the preceding chapter it is recorded that “the Lord said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; though the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” How much consolation there is in the promise, to all who have the hope of eternal life! In it is predicted that some will escape the final destruction.
Finally, how encouraging and full of cheer is the further promise of our Heavenly Father that “while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night SHALL NOT CEASE.” Then, in addition to these cheering promises assuring us of these temporal blessings so altogether necessary to man’s happiness, countless other promises are to be found in the Word, assuring the Christian of innumerable spiritual and temporal blessings for the future. Truly, in the words of David (Ps. 119:64) the earth itself is full of God’s mercy. Jesus taught His disciples to believe in the goodness of His Father, in His willingness to give good gifts to His children. He said (John 16): “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. . . . Ask, and ye shall receive, THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL.”
As Jesus was about to be taken away from His disciples, and as He predicted their coming tribulations and sufferings for His sake, their hearts were made sad, and, to say the least, the prospect before them was not very cheering nor optimistic. But Jesus said to them (John 16): “Ye shall weep and lament; . . . ye shall be sorrowful, BUT YOUR SORROW SHALL BE TURNED INTO JOY. . . . Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and YOUR JOY NO MAN TAKETH FROM YOU.”
These words are also for the Christian of to-day. Are you inclined to be a pessimist? Count your many blessings, name them one by one. Are you becoming addicted to the long-faced habit? Start a counter-habit at once. Are the corners of your mouth down? Form the habit of turning them up, smile-fashion. Do you often have the “blues”? Read these promises over again. Jesus tells you that YOU ARE SAFE under His protecting hand, and under that of His Father—of YOUR Father. For, says He of His followers (John 10:28, 29): “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, NEITHER SHALL ANY MAN PLUCK THEM OUT OF MY HAND. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and NO MAN IS ABLE TO PLUCK THEM OUT OF MY FATHER’S HAND.”
As you go through life, remember that “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory:” that “we KNOW that ALL THINGS work together for GOOD to them that love God.” Never lose sight of the great and optimist-making truth, that “the Most High [not the devil] RULETH in the kingdom of men,” and that THE HAND OF GOD IS ON THE LEVER OF THE UNIVERSE. Do you wish to have your joy full? Be an optimist. A. J. B.