Today I pickup a subject which I have been avoiding for some time. It is not easy to write about a great failure.
First Thessalonians 5:16 says
“Rejoice always,” (ESV)
“Be joyful always,” (NIV)
“Rejoice evermore,” (KJV)
I have lived almost all my life as a pessimist. If I was ever an optimist, I can’t remember it. Many years ago, I stopped attempting to rationalize my pessimism by saying I was actually a realist. Very recently I would have informed you that studies have shown that pessimists are more accurate in their analysis than optimists. I would have told you this with a smug look on my face and inside would have been justifying my behavior as necessary to do things well on this fallen earth. After all, those crazy optimists are either unwilling to face reality or just so happy that they don’t care that they may be wrong more often. And at the end of the last sentence is what it really all boils down to for me and probably many other pessimists. I don’t want to be wrong. I am so focused on not being wrong that I have been willing to sacrifice my own happiness in exchange for being right more often. My wife (the optimist) gently pokes fun at me for having made this choice; and once I lay it out as bluntly and honestly as that, I begin to wonder who the crazy one is.
So let me put forward a question.
Is pessimism a sin?
I am sure that if you are a pessimist, you will instinctively react with a big “no”, and then you would search for a rationale how that no could be true. Since I am writing this, you can be assured that I have chased down that logical path more than a few times. You could argue that about half the people you know are optimists, and half are pessimists. Surely half of the people you know could not be involved in ongoing sin. I’m pretty sure that is a lame argument. You could argue that God created each person with a distinctly beautiful personality, and optimism or pessimism is just a part of that personality. Maybe that is a little better. However, search your heart and ask yourself if you believe there will be pessimists in heaven. For me, that one ends with me swallowing rather hard at the answer.
And so on I lived with no real answer to that question. (And I like to know the answers to questions.) I ruminated on how I could write about this Biblical directive without it becoming an exceedingly painful indictment of who I am. I thought and thought. I waited and waited. Finally, mercifully the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin. This transpired through specific circumstances in my life that were not especially pleasant. When I speak of being convicted, I don’t mean the kind of conviction that you put down on your to do list, address it and move on. I’m not even speaking of one that you put on the top of every day’s to do list and move on. (Although that is not a bad idea.) I am talking about an Isaiah-like “Woe is me! for I am lost; because I am a man of unclean lips” realization of my sin and my ongoing excuse for my sin. I had to stop making excuses or softening the blow of the false reality I had grown accustomed to.
Let me tell you that I actually don’t believe that pessimism in and of itself is a sin. However, the minute (or microsecond) that it begins to rob you of your joy I believe you have clearly fallen into sin. This is not an easy thing to accept. I don’t expect anyone to accept it quickly or easily. I only ask that you consider it and ponder it. If you are a Christian, don’t allow living in a fallen, sin-cursed world to rob you of the abundant life that Jesus speaks about in John 10:10.
And so on I live with an answer to my question, but with a challenge I cannot win under my own power. I need a lot of help. “Woe is me! for I am lost; because I am a man of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
