Where a loss of optimism can lead...

From my office, if I stand close to my upstairs window and look far out towards the horizon, I can see “it” poking it’s head above the trees and buildings. The “it” is a Casino. It’s right in the middle of town, with a parking lot that always looks full when I get on the freeway to go home. In fact, our local paper reported recently that with the economy being so bad and with so many businesses hurting for customers – attendance numbers at the casino was actually increasing!
But that only makes sense, right?
Surely, in these troubled times, people are flocking there who are optimistically thinking to themselves, “My luck is bound change! This time, when I pull the handle on the slot machine, I’m going to win a jackpot that will change everything for the better!”
People who frequently visit casinos are optimists, right? They just have to be it would seem. But if the truth be known, in clinical studies, people who frequent casinos aren’t optimists... they’re major league pessimists!
That took me by surprise when I first read that people weren’t numbly “pulling the handle” of a slot machine because they thought it would lead to a positive future. Most were pulling the handle because they felt they didn’t have a future – or at least a future that they could do anything about changing.
But certainly, that kind of fatalistic view of the future isn’t something Christians have to deal with, right? After all, we can lay claim to verses like Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans for welfare, not calamity, to give you a future and a hope.” And “Phillipians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be make known unto God.”
Those are great verses, and God’s word is absolutely true. But if the truth be known, I think many Christians today – like never before in my lifetime – are getting a chance to hold those verses in one hand, and the incredibly harsh economic and social realities we’re facing in the other. In fact, if I were a betting man, I would “wager” that some of us reading (or writing) this blog right now are fearful about a positive future. What's more, some are questioning whether with so many "rules of life" having changed so quickly... can we really impact our future in a positive way?
Let me start by being honest about being fearful of a positive future. Back in the months after 9/11, our small ministry almost went under. We do roughly 18 to 20 seminars a year, and those seminars at churches across the country represent about 75% of our income as a ministry. After 9/11, we had 14 seminars cancel -- and we nearly went out of ministry. I thought that was the toughest of tough times. However, to put things in perspective, we had our major February conference cancel... then our major March conference... then April... May... and two days ago, I got a call that our July conference had canceled. (Which makes June sound like a good month -- except we didn't have a June seminar!). All that to say that I had to sit down with my precious wife, Cindy, and have the same very challenging talk with her that I did back after 9/11. That is we not only won't be getting paycheck this month... but as it looks I won't be able to hand her a paycheck this summer. That's tough, but I know lots of folks who have had it tougher. And so that leads me back to where we began.
It's 6:13pm and I'm getting ready to go home, looking out my window at the office as I write this... and just barely able to see the casino in the distance. Tune in tomorrow, and I'll share with you what it is that keeps me from turning into that parking lot, and pulling a handle.
Lord bless and write more soon,
John Trent, Ph.D. StrongFamilies.com