CHAPTER NINE
WHY I’M AN OPTIMIST
Lessons from My DVR
I’m a USC football fan.
I had no choice.
It’s a family thing.
My dad was a graduate of the University of Southern California and a big fan of the Trojans. He’d regale me with stories of players and teams from his youth. I grew up knowing the names and numbers of players who graced the gridiron long before my time. Once he started actually taking me to the games, I was hooked. The pageantry, passion, and tradition (not to mention a few national championships) locked me in.
As with any fan, I hate to see my team lose. But some losses are worse than others. In the world of USC football, there are two games that matter most: the crosstown rivalry with UCLA and the annual battle with Notre Dame. But without question, the bitterest pill to swallow is any loss to Notre Dame.
It’s not that USC fans hate the Fighting Irish (at least most don’t). In fact, it’s not a particularly heated rivalry. There’s a ton of mutual respect. They’ve been playing each other since 1926. As I write this, they’ve evenly split twenty-two national championships and fourteen Heisman Trophy winners. Five of the ten most-watched televised college football games have been battles between these two storied programs. Most pundits consider their annual matchup to be the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football. Nothing comes close. And it’s precisely because of this rich history and tradition that it has become the one game a USC Trojan fan hates to lose most.
Many of the games are vividly stamped into my memory, especially those that ended with a thrilling last-second victory or crushing defeat. But one game stands above the rest. It was not only a great game, but it also taught me an incredibly important spiritual lesson.
The year was 2005. USC was riding a twenty-seven-game winning streak. The Trojans were ranked first in the national polls and favored to win another national championship. But the Fighting Irish stood in the way.
It was a Notre Dame home game, so the stadium was packed with Notre Dame fans cheering on their team at a fevered pitch. For most of the game, USC seemed unsettled and out of sorts. They turned the ball over and squandered numerous scoring opportunities. Even though they were supposedly the superior team, they didn’t play like it.
Then with just over two minutes left in the game, Notre Dame marched down the field to score an apparent game-clinching touchdown. With a 31–28 lead and hardly any time on the clock, the Irish fans went nuts.
Trojan fans sank into a deep funk.
Yet I still held on to a sliver of hope. Die-hard fans always do. Who knows, I thought, maybe we’ll run the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown. Maybe we’ll have a miracle finish. It happens. Why not us—why not today?
But no such luck. Instead of a miraculous kickoff return, USC ended up trapped deep in its own territory. Then things went from bad to worse. As Matt Leinart, the Trojan quarterback, faded back for a desperation pass, a Notre Dame lineman broke through to toss him for a ten-yard loss at the fifteen-yard line. That left USC facing a third and nineteen as the final seconds ticked off.
The Notre Dame crowd went crazy. The Irish players chest-bumped. Their goofy leprechaun mascot cartwheeled across the field.
I lost my sanctification.
To this day, I can’t get that play out of my head. And I can’t watch it without reaching for the remote. But it’s not to change the channel. It’s to hit pause and then play it back in slow motion.
I want to see where the blocking broke down. I want to understand why Leinart failed to find an open receiver. But most of all, I want to take in the unmitigated joy and passion of the Notre Dame players and fans as they celebrate.
I count the chest bumps. I count the leprechaun’s cartwheels. And then I watch it again.
Not because I’m a masochist. Not because I’m a good loser. But because I know how the game ends. I know that two plays after being sacked, Leinart will throw a miraculous fourth-down sixty-one-yard pass to Dwayne Jarrett. I know that as time runs out he’ll sneak across the goal line with a little help from Reggie Bush in what will go down in USC lore as the “Bush Push.”
In other words, I know that the good guys win (at least my good guys). And that changes everything. The same plays that once caused me to yell at the TV, toss the remote, and utter Christian euphemisms no longer faze me. A Notre Dame touchdown in the waning moments is no big deal. A devastating ten-yard loss is not so devastating. They just make the miracle ending all the better.
And then it hit me. Don’t we claim to know how the game of life ends? And if we do, shouldn’t that affect the way we interpret and respond to the Enemy’s short-term victories and temporary advances?
If our sins are forgiven and our destiny assured, if we are joint heirs with Jesus and certain he’s coming back to set all wrongs right, then despair and panic over the latest court decision, or even the steady erosion of morality in our culture, hardly seem like appropriate responses.
Where’s the Joy?
I remember walking into our church years ago after a particular election that did not go the way most people in my church wanted it to go. You could cut the angst with a knife. I was shocked at how deep and widespread the sense of defeat was.
Had I stood up and proclaimed, “All is lost. The Devil has won. God has met his match. You might as well go home and hide,” I would have been run out of town as a heretic. Yet that’s pretty much how everyone was acting and feeling.
And it wasn’t a one-time deal. I’m convinced that any nonbeliever listening in on our hallway conversations and small group gatherings, or reading our emails, text messages, and social media posts would be surprised to find out how often those of us who claim to believe that Jesus is sovereign over the affairs of men and nations fail to act and talk like it.
This is not to say that our electoral, legal, cultural, and moral setbacks aren’t puzzling and frustrating. They are. It’s a sad day when those who live godless lifestyles are lifted up as role models, when orthodox Christian doctrines are mocked, or when biblical values are criminalized.
But it’s not the end of the story. These are simply the Enemy’s short-term and temporary victories on the way to his great and final defeat. Today’s score isn’t the final score. Nothing can separate us from the love of God and the glorious eternity he has laid out for us.1
And knowing that should change everything about how we interpret and respond to the things that happen around us—even when they are tough, evil, and hard to swallow.
Fear and pessimism make no sense when victory is guaranteed.
The Lens of Faith
Obviously, Daniel wasn’t pleased to see his homeland ransacked, the Babylonians victorious, or his life turned upside down. He had plenty to be legitimately distressed about. But he also had God’s promises. And it’s here that Daniel made an important choice.
He chose to interpret his circumstances through the lens of faith. He responded in light of God’s promises rather than in light of Nebuchadnezzar’s successes.
Daniel knew God had warned the nation of Israel that they would be handed over to foreign nations if they failed to obey his commands. So when Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem and took Daniel and his friends off to Babylon, he accepted it as God’s will. That doesn’t mean he found it pleasant or enjoyed it. I’m sure he had many a sleepless night and a deep sense of sadness over what had occurred.
But his trust in God’s ultimate goodness and power was stronger and deeper than his sorrow or confusion. He might not have understood everything that was happening, but he responded as one who knew that God was in control of who was in control, even when God’s choices proved to be puzzling and disturbing.2
Daniel also knew that God had promised to restore his people and judge their oppressors once their season of discipline was over. So with faith, he embraced Babylon’s temporary success as God’s will. And with faith, he confidently looked forward to a better day when God would restore his people to a place of great blessings.3
The lens of faith is the key to seeing clearly when all hell breaks loose. It’s the only way to make sense out of the senseless. And it’s the only way to respond properly when obedience no longer seems to be working. It’s the lens through which all the great heroes of the faith viewed their lives and contemporary challenges.
Consider Abraham. Imagine how confusing and difficult it must have been as he trudged up the mountain to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God.
The entire incident is mind-boggling—and if we’re honest, rather troubling. God had clearly commanded Abraham to do the unthinkable—the irrational—the indefensible. There was nothing ambiguous about it. The command was crystal clear. He was to take his son up the mountain and slay him on an altar of sacrifice to God.
Yet the Lord had also clearly promised he would bless Abraham with descendants too numerous to count. A great nation would one day trace their lineage through him.
Frankly there was no way for Abraham to reconcile God’s promises with his current reality. On the surface, they were mutually exclusive. A dead teenager doesn’t give birth to a great nation.
Yet Abraham chose to view and respond to his circumstances through the lens of faith. He continued on the path of obedience even though it seemed like a path of folly. He figured that reconciling irreconcilable commands and promises was God’s problem, not his. So much so that he figured God would raise Isaac from the dead—and mind you, this was long before Lazarus, Jesus, or any other examples of God raising anyone from the dead.4
Today, we have the same choice to make. Though our options are nowhere near as gut-wrenching or perplexing as Abraham’s, we still must choose if we are going to trust God or not. When his commands make no sense or the path of obedience seems as if it will only make matters worse, we have a choice to make. Are we going to interpret and respond to our current circumstances through the lens of faith or are we going to interpret our God through the lens of our current reality?
Ultimately it’s a matter of “Who are we going to believe?”
Who Are We Going to Believe?
Satan and his minions are boastful liars. They want us to believe that their current victories are proof of their eventual conquest.5 But Jesus says they’re full of bunk. He’s promised that the gates of hell won’t prevail and that he’ll return one day to set up his kingdom and cast Satan and his cronies into an eternal lake of fire.
So who are we going to believe?
The Gates of Hell
Jesus’s promise that he will build his church and the gates of hell will not be able to prevail is well known. Most Christians are familiar with it. Many can quote it if given a running start.6
Yet many of us misunderstand what his promise means and overlook the audacity of his claim, myself included.
I always imagined Jesus to be making a guarantee that no matter what the Enemy threw at us, he wouldn’t be able to defeat us. I pictured a fierce opponent on the attack as we hunkered down, protected by Jesus. I envisioned surviving the onslaught in much the same way that the survivors of a tornado climb out of their shelter after the danger has passed. They are thrilled to be alive. But there’s a massive mess to clean up.
You see, I was unfamiliar with the purpose of ancient city gates. They weren’t an offensive weapon. They served a defensive purpose. They kept the enemies out. No one picked up a city gate and went on the attack.
The idea of Christians hunkered down while Satan batters us with the gates of hell would have been ludicrous to the people of Jesus’s day. They knew what gates were for. They wouldn’t have thought for a moment that the gates of hell couldn’t defeat us. They would have understood that the gates of hell can’t hold us back.
The difference is huge.
One leads to a cowering, defensive, hold-on-for-dear-life approach to life and faith. The other leads to an optimistic, confident, give-me-your-best-shot approach to life and faith. One panics and despairs when things go wrong. The other stands strong and hopeful no matter what the current scoreboard says.
A Book Called Revelation
We also have a book called Revelation. Admittedly, much of it can be hard to decipher. But one thing is crystal clear. In the end, we win. Big-time.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m often asked by people in my congregation to preach on it. But most of them don’t really want me to teach through the book of Revelation. They want me to tell them what the seven trumpets represent and if the moon will literally turn blood red. And since I live on the coast, the surfers want to know if it’s true that the new earth won’t have an ocean. Because if it doesn’t, they’re not sure where they want to go.
In other words, everyone wants to know what all the cryptic details mean.
They’re usually a bit disappointed when I tell them that the main purpose of Revelation isn’t to satisfy our curiosity or give us detailed insider information about events far into the future. Those who are alive in the final days won’t need a highly educated Bible scholar or prophecy manual to decipher all the cryptic and confusing symbols. They’ll make perfect sense, just as the Old Testament messianic prophecies (which were equally cryptic and confusing) made perfect sense when Jesus showed up to fulfill them.7
In the meantime, there is one thing the book of Revelation makes clear. Jesus is coming back to set up his eternal kingdom. And when he does, he’ll vindicate his followers and annihilate Satan and the enemies of righteousness.
Knowing that should change everything about the way we interpret and respond to our current realities, no matter how puzzling they may be. If we’ve read the book and believe Jesus, we know how the game ends.
And that’s why I’m an optimist, no matter what the scoreboard says.
1 Romans 8:31–39
2 Deuteronomy 28–30; Daniel 1:1–2; Romans 13:1
3 Daniel was a contemporary of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Both foretold the future restoration of God’s people. He was also the recipient of dreams and visions that foretold the destruction of God’s enemies and the coming of God’s kingdom. See Ezekiel 34:27–31; Jeremiah 25:8–12; 29:8–10; Daniel 2, 9.
4 Hebrews 11:17–19
5 John 8:44
6 Matthew 16:18
7 1 Peter 1:10–12