The Measure of Our Attitude

Today I went out for a dinner with one of my awesome girlfriends who lends me a book. Which was one of the reasons I ranked her high in my top-friends drafting list. And so I read It's Your Time as I rocked my office chair, which had been distracting my roommate from her assignment. Well at least I tried.

And as I tried to quiet down, a narrative just captured my thoughts. It described the true origin of the panglossian Christians: characterized by or given to extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity. Let's put on our safety googles and take a look into this narrative:

"I read about an experiment that attempted to measure the power of attitude in rats. The researchers wanted to see how the rats' attitudes affected their will to live. They put one rat in a large tub of water with high sides so it could not get out. Then they put the tub in a dark room. They timed how long the rat would keep swimming before it gave up. The rat lasted a little over three minutes.
Then the researchers put another rat in the same tub, but this time they allowed a bright ray of light to shine into the room. That rat swam more than thirty-six hours, seven hundred times longer than the rat with no light.
Why was that? The rat with no light had no hope. When he looked ahead he saw only darkness. There wasn't any reason to keep swimming. That's what happens when we don't expect God's favor. We lose faith that we can overcome our obstacles. We don't believe that God is in control, so we lose our passion, we lose our enthusiasm."

-It's Your Time, Joel Osteen

It is amazing how Jesus was the source to our steadfastness until we spiritually resurrect. With God, we can be supernaturally optimism, becoming the panglossian Christians who may soar like the eagles. Soaring above the storms.