“When my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I” (Ps 61:2).
Christian realism has a dab of pessimism but a dollop of optimism. Listen: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). “Without Me…nothing.” “In Me…much fruit.” Or as Paul puts it: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:24-25).
From the pit of despair to the peak of deliverance in one sentence! And Christ is the secret. Isn’t it great that Christians don’t have to pretend? “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Cor 4:8-10). Through His dying comes our life; through our dying comes His life. Win-win.