PreparedBeing the optimist that I am I find it easy to hope for the best; however, hope is not a strategy.  The experience of life however, has taught is teaching me to prepare for the worst.  Solomon teaches us,

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12)
My hope has been deferred recently as Jeanne and I are in the process of selling our home and buying another home.  When we bought our home they checked for termites and said it’s fine to move in – now they require enough building inspectors to inspect the construction of the twin towers.
How do you respond when situations don’t go as planned?  The reality is there is no security on this earth but there is opportunity.  Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; and optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  We need both optimists and pessimists.  It’s been said, “The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.”  But we also need realists.
William Arthur Ward gives a a good summary to this discussion, “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”  May we be realists as we face the storms of life.

 

RickRick Higgins

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University