Hope Built on Promise

Text excerpts taken from “The Road to Peace”

by Henri J.M. Nouwen

© 2002 by Orbis Books

“Optimism arranges reality in a way that enables us to say things will get better. Pessimism arranges the same reality so that we can say things will probably get worse. When it rains, the optimist says, “How wonderful! Things will grow.” Seeing the same rain, the pessimist says, “Everything will drown.”

Being neither an optimist nor a pessimist, Jesus speaks about hope that is not based on chances that things will get better or worse. His hope is built upon the promise that, whatever happens, God will stay with us at all times, in all places. God is the God of life.’”