I have been hanging out with Christian folks for many years and I have many, many friends and relatives who are Christian.

However all my friends and relatives are not “like-minded”.

Some are obsessed with the idea that we are in the last days.

That’s ok.

But it is just not me.

As we consider God speaking your love language, Dr. Chapman is preaching a very positive message.  It does not sound like this Christian is worried about the last days.

My negative Christian friends and relatives are saying that God is going to destroy the world economy, the common tender we use to buy and sell will be valueless and all of us are going to be reduced to people who are killing others for a canned ham.   It is time to buy gold, liquidate all assets, purchase meals ready-to-eat and stock up on weapons and lots of ammo.

Sorry, that’s extreme.

But I have friends and relatives who seem to have that attitude.

This brings me to my point, why try?

Why be concerned about giving or receiving words of affirmation when your true concern should be what can I do to make sure I am able to survive when the end times come?

I admit it.  I tend to fall into the category of optimistic Christian.

I am not naïve.  I know society shows signs of breaking down [I do watch “the news”].  I know that our economy and the world economy are linked and one domino falling in Greece can cause ripples in America.  Terrorists do exist and can wreak havoc and some extreme religious groups are out to kill Christians.

These are scary times we live in.

However, I just don’t believe my negative friends and relatives have all the answers.   God’s plan is a mystery.

Romans 11: 33-34 “The depth and the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable His judgments and his paths beyond tracing out!  Who has known the mind of the Lord?”    Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 9: 1  “So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hand, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him.”

Now we don’t have a clear vision of what God has in store for us. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror.” [I Corinthians 13].

Dr. Chapman cites words of encouragement from God like “I will strengthen you and help you”,  “I have plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” and  “I will turn your mourning into gladness; I will give you comfort and joy instead of sorrow.”

What are my negative Christian friends and relatives doing with words like those?

Truly that old cliché “what do you see when you look at a glass of water that is half full of water” comes into play.  Some people truly see it as half empty.  Others see it as half full.

I am the half-full type of Christian.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t tell my negative friends and relatives that they are wrong.  I respect them.  I love them and it is not my job to judge and change them.  I do get very quiet when they go on a negative rant and give head nods to what they are saying.  The head nods are not the real me.  To be honest, I should be shaking my head side to side in a negative fashion because that is what I am really thinking.  I guess I am hypocritical.

You see I believe God has it all in His hands.  He wants me to make the effort.  He wants me to try to learn the language of love.  He wants me to see a person who has needs and He wants me to learn to affirm them.  He wants me to see that He loves me and I believe he loves you too.

I can’t tell my negative Christian friends and relatives all this though because they are worried that the whole geo-political climate is being destroyed.  In my mind, they are struggling to mentally grasp the ungraspable.

I leave all that to God.

When I have a friend who is struggling with his bad health, I want to tell him that he will feel better.  I believe that God has good things in store for him.  When I have a friend who struggles financially, I want to help him and tell him that the future will be better because God says it will and he needs to have hope.   When I have  friends who are in a bad marriage and seem lost, I want to tell them that there is a way to fix the mess and God can work through them in that marriage and things can get better.  God hates divorce.

I know it sounds like Pollyanna.

For every verse I have cited, my negative friends and relatives can cite many more  that are negative, stronger and more ominous.

That’s ok.

For me I choose to “live by faith, not by sight” and my faith leads me to do what I can to make the world a better place.

My faith leads me to try.