Negative Nancy

I’m kind of a pessimist, and I don’t think it is completely a negative thing.  I have to keep myself in check and not allow my pessimism to take over a certain situation.  Sometimes I can even be a little optimistic about things.  Pessimism and optimism are most easily contrasted in the whole "is the glass half empty or half full?"  question.

A good thing about being a pessimist is that you are not often surprised about negative circumstances.  If a plan goes wrong or something bad happens, chances are I have already thought about the possibility of it happening. 

Ultimately my faith in God balances out my pessimism.  I don’t see my sometimes negative outlook as a lack of faith in God.  The Bible does tell us to not worry; it says that God will take care of things.  I do make a conscious effort to not worry and to take things as they come.  I see worrying as being different from having a generally pessimistic attitude.  I know that I am not in control of the situations that I am in, but God is watching over me and constantly working situations for the good.  The Bible does not promise that everything will be good or that I am going to have everything that I want.  The Bible says that God is working everything out for good.  Situations may be bad or uncomfortable, but God can use it in some way. 

Sometimes we can let our negative thoughts and attitudes control us.  We can look at the worst in things and continue to look for new things to go wrong and something else to feel bad about.

I was recently talking with an elderly lady from church.  She has a nice, positive personality and seems to genuinely trust God to take care of her.  I was asking her about another elderly lady in our church that recently had back surgery. 

She said that our friend was doing well, but that she was still in a lot of pain.  She said that the worst thing was that she has a bad attitude; she was upset about various things and she seems to look for new things to be upset about.  For instance, even though she was in a lot of pain, she refused to take the pain medication because of the slight chance that she would get addicted to the drugs. 

My friend gave her some good advice to try and not worry about things so much and relax.  The more that she worries and stresses out about all the things that could go wrong, the harder time she will have recovering from surgery.  She told her that, “Worry is kind of like rocking in a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.” 

Even though I sometimes see the worst in things, I don’t allow it to control me or dictate my faith in God.  My father had open-heart surgery back in October.  Even though it was scary and it would have been easy for the worst to happen, I had peace because I knew that God was in control. 

It is important that we don’t allow worry to control us; it will not help us in the end, but will only hurt us.  The Bible tells us that we have a heavenly Father who wants to take care of us.  I don’t know about you, but I would rather He take care of things.  He is certainly a little more able.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 // NIV