How Can You Stay So Optimistic? March 27, 2023
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People ask me often “How can you spend so much time following the news and writing on the bizarre twists and turns of our political theater of the absurd and still remain so happy and optimistic?”
The answer is, “It’s easy because my hope is in Christ, and all of this is just a soap opera.”
Sure, I tune in multiple times every day to see what my people are up to. Yes, I follow every twist and turn in the plot. I cheer when my favorite characters triumph and I hiss when the evil nemesis unfairly pulls them down.
However, all in all I realize I’m something like Horton. I hear the Who. And like Horton I realize there’s a whole world living on a speck of dust flying along oblivious to the fact that dust in the wind is not the most stable place to exist.
Fleeting flowers and beautiful sunsets like snowflakes and icicles dazzle the eye inspire the imagination and then they’re gone. Look at the sweep of History. We read of empires long ago. The amazing DNA tests available through a multitude of sources can tell us where we come from. Ancestry web sites tell us who we come from.
But, what do we know of those billions who’ve gone before? What were the names of your eight great grandparents? If by some miracle you can name all eight, what do you know about their lives? Can anyone reading this name their sixteen great-great grandparents? I would wager 100 to one no one can. In our own lives our knowledge of History dissolves before 100 years has elapsed. We can read and memorize facts about the past but how far back does that really go? At most 5,000 years.
Conservatively the earth is at least four billion years old. The universe itself is estimated to be at least thirteen billion years old.
And our direct knowledge goes back maybe one hundred years. Our knowledge gained through study maybe five thousand. Get the picture? We are the Who.
If that was all there was, I would jump up on a table and sing,
Is that all there is, is that all there is?
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing.
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball!
If that’s all there is.
And for the first thirty years of my life that’s what I did. The emptiness and futility of it all led me to the edge of sanity and beyond. I wandered about aimlessly muttering, “I’ve got to try something. I’ve got to try something.”
Until a voice in my ear said, “Why don’t you try God?”
That day changed my life. That day led me to the road that led me to Christ and from that day to this I have hope and joy and nothing I see prancing across the stage of this earthly drama can take it away.
In America our standard greeting is, “Hi, how you are doing?” Not that anyone really cares. Not that anyone ever really listens to your answer. That is just a customary greeting. I always answer, “I’m blessed.” This often brings questions such as, “Why?” This gives me an opportunity to tell them I’m blessed because I have eternal life and that Jesus gave it to me and the devil can’t take it away.”
Sometime people answer, “I am too.” And it’s always a joy to meet a brother or sister wherever they may be.
Though it’s interesting and it helps pass the time as we hang on to our speck of dust swirling about in the wind don’t let the storyline get you down. Just skip to the back of the book and you’ll find out that Jesus is God, God wins in the end, and no matter how bad it gets we should pray, “Come Lord Jesus.”
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 26, 2023
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Loving too much can lead to pain but loving to little leads to misery.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 25, 2023
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When we’re truly ourselves, we add something to the world that has never been there before.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 24, 2023
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What we do for ourselves vanishes when we die. What we do for others, lives on as our legacy.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 23, 2023
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Any road will work when you don’t know where you’re going.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 22, 2023
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Meaningless words mean less than a meaningful silence.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 21, 2023
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Proving that regret is more prevalent than gratitude is easy, dead people get more flowers than the living.
Does Any of This Make Any Sense? March 20, 2023
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Looking at the world around us it’s easy to find ourselves asking this question. When we see the suffering, the depression, the poverty, and the horror of everyday life for so many it’s hard not to see the nightmare reality of this world as a curse.
That’s a good place to start searching for the meaning in it all because it is a curse.
You see when God created the world He created it as a good thing, a wondrous, and beautiful thing. Here’s the rub; actions have consequences.
I’ve always thought if I ever found a perfect church, I’d spoil it by joining because I’m not perfect. Most of us mature enough in life to realize we aren’t quite what we could or should be. Some people never attain this level of self-awareness and we judge them to suffer from a type of psychological problem known as narcissism. A central aspect of narcissism is grandiosity. That is, narcissists tend to think highly of themselves. In particular, they tend to have a positive view of themselves compared to other people.
Most of us don’t suffer from this malady. It is more often some form of feeling we aren’t good enough that plagues us. Those who stumble out of a dysfunctional family are all too often familiar with this one.
Whatever brand of psychobabble seeps through our lives working itself out in hubris and braggadocio or anxiety and self-doubt it doesn’t take a genius to figure out this world is messed up. Neither is it too complicated for the least perceptive among us to discern. All too often what the world calls good is bad and what the world calls bad is good. This alone is enough to make us see the fractured carnival mirror reflection of justice that permeates our reality. Add to this our personal experiences and anyone who thinks we’ve found ourselves in a bed of roses may be fooling themselves, but they aren’t fooling anyone else.
Anyone who can walk through this vale of tears with no faith is a better man then I Gunga Din.
I wasn’t able to do it. I made it till I was thirty years old and the meaninglessness of it all was on the verge of driving me to suicide. I kept coming back to if that’s all there is, my friends then let’s keep dancing let’s break out the booze and have a ball if that’s all there is. However, I found living at the perpetual party at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe was not very uplifting and after a while I couldn’t even pretend it was fun. How anyone can stagger through all this with no hope of anything beyond this is beyond me.
I can only pray that if they ever come to the end of themselves they will look to God. That’s what I did and I was surprised to find that God was looking at me.
‘Why is the world so messed up? Because God made man His viceroy in this creation and instead of listening to God and doing things His way we listened to Satan and gave the whole shooting match away. The story is there for us in Genesis and because of that decision God laid a curse on the whole deal.
But He also gave us a promise at the same time that He would send a Savior. Jesus is that Savior. The penalty for disobeying God is eternal separation from God. The only way back is to live a perfect life which no one can do. God became a human, lived a perfect life, and then died for the sins He never committed as a substitute for us.
In doing this He defeated sin, death, and the Devil. He also opened the way for all of us to get in on the action. All we have to do is accept Jesus as our leader in life and believe that God raised Him from the dead and that’s it. The whole deal is reversed, and we are welcomed home. Let’s run like the prodigal to greet the Father who has waited for us, who greets us like the like lost child we are.
Does any of this make any sense? It does. As a matter of fact, it makes perfect sense.
You see no matter how messed up it is if we will accept God’s offer, if we will step past the end of ourselves and into His waiting arms the veil will fall from our eyes, and we will see this world for what it is: an incubator for the children of God.
It’s not a matter of seeing and then believing instead it’s a case of believing so you can see.
The Bible lays all this out in great detail. Anyone who’s interested can contact me for a guided tour.
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 19, 2023
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The secret of a successful life is to find out what God wants us to do, and then do it.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 17, 2023
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When we can’t change the direction of the wind let’s adjust our sails.
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 