Realism is a good thing
In his most recent article published in the German newspaper “Wirtschaftswoche” Nico Rose writes about the vital importance of comfort zones. They not only serve one’s own comfort, but actually help us to survive. I quote: “Sentences that should motivate oneself or others are always meant well and can be categorised as nonsense. “If you can dream it, you can do it,” is one such sentence. It you translate this sentence literally into your daily life, you can either end up with a bloody nose or you have dreamt away your life!”
The conference speaker and expert for positive psychology is right. We are surrounded by close limitations. No one knows that better than the patients of the Hospital Diospi Suyana who sit in the first row during the morning service next to their IV-stands. They do not need to be told that health and life energy are limited resources. We often hear them saying: “If only I could do what I wanted to, I would…!”
25 years ago at a sports event I completed the 5,000m race in 17 minutes. Irrespective of what you think of my prowess back then, one thing is sure: nowadays I need 8 minutes longer to cover the same distance. O, the ravages of time. And when our strength dwindles over the years we remember God’s omnipotence.
Yesterday I received an email from a friend living in America who is about to undergo heart-surgery. He needs stents in his coronary arteries, but due to a complicated outflow of a coronary vessel this procedure was not possible. He concluded his email: “All this makes me more humble and God knows that. Perhaps he wants to make me into a better person and for that I am truly grateful!”
Paul also experienced this. Writing to a group of Christians living in Greece he refers to our bodies’ increasing limitations: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 New International Version (NIV)). /KDJ
