The penultimate addition to the Gospel Filter series is here! In episode 5 of 6 we’re addressing how the Gospel enables optimism.

We’re natural cynics. We look for the flaw, wait for the bad, and expect the worst.

But God is the ultimate optimist. He pursues the bad way before they become good. He doesn’t just pick the ones who have a head start, or those doing impressively well on their own. He picks the ones in dead last, the drop-outs, the complete embarrassments. Then he makes them good.

It’s easy to be demoralized in our broken world. Thanks to tech we can see brokenness on a scale of Biblical proportions. In 10 minutes online I can observe death, hurt, sickness, corruption, and hate on the scale of millions – it’s hard to fathom yet alone impact. So what do we do with this information? If you’re anything like me, you probably become cynical.

In college I double-majored in history and political science. It took me all of one semester to become jaded. Most of us see there’s too much injustice, over too much time, to expect anything other than the worst. Any attempt to simply be “optimistic” comes off as either trite or creepy. You either become PollyAnna, singing about how great your suffering is, or the Joker, smiling through the tears.

However, the Gospel enables optimism because we can look to the source of hope.

.We engage people online with hope because in God there is hope for all of us.

.We engage this broken world because we know the already but not yet. We have present power and future hope.

.We go all in this life because God went all-in.

In Christ we no longer have a right to our cynicism. God paid for it in the blood of his Son Jesus. Our only option now is prayerful, repentant, humble optimism.