Faith

I love the story of the perpetual optimist. He fell off of a ten-story building and still had a smile on his face when he passed the fifth floor on the way down. When someone yelled out the window, “How are you?” He answered, “Okay, so far!” I know that’s unrealistic, but the story reminds me of the power of mindset. Choosing a mindset of positivity and hope vs. negativity and pity can transform your life. It’s not an easy thing as not everyone has a pre-disposition to positivity. It is often an engineered behavior created through the daily choice to set your thinking on the positive. Don’t ignore the negative, don’t focus on it, instead plan and maneuver around it. 

This also takes a healthy dose of faith. Most of us don’t know how an airplane takes off and continues to fly, yet we board planes all the time, just believing that it will. That’s faith in human engineering. If we are going to have faith in that, then why not also have faith in the One that made it all possible? The Bible says: “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” So many times in my life, I had nothing left to hold on to other than faith. I had serious doubts in these moments. Faith isn’t the absence of doubt, but the power that allows us to work through that doubt towards something we believe to be true. As in one of my son’s Core Convictions, “you CAN work through your doubt.” That takes faith and some good old fashioned hard work. 

Whatever area your life needs hope today, seek an extra measure of faith and then put your hands to the plow and start moving. Choose a positive outlook and hold on to hope. God’s Hope never fails.