The Positive Element

People are always saying stuff about being "positive" and often they mean nothing more than being cheerful.  Which, clearly, isn't a terribly sane or workable attitude to any number of human experiences.  Just resolving to walk around being/seeming cheerful all the time isn't going to fix most problems in the world, nor is it possible or advisable for absolutely everyone. In fact, there's nothing that shuts down openness more than an environment of mandatory cheerfulness.  But there's something to the idea of "the positive."  I'm positive there is.
    For instance, the word that is usually translated "virtue" or "virtuous" in the King James Bible isn't about piety or abstinence from bad fun stuff.  It's about effectiveness.  Power.  Workableness.  Excellence.  That kind of positive. Not just "upbeat."  The "virtuous" woman in Proverbs that everyone says we should all try to marry/be isn't being praised for her self-control and her piety.  She's being praised for her industriousness and her effectiveness.

    There needs to be a workable, worthwhile, excellent outcome, in order for us to bother with most things.  For instance, it's not enough for people in an oppressive culture to simply get free of it.  Sure, we want to get free, many of us.  Being free's nice and all that.  And God seems to insist upon freeing our hearts and minds, whether we want Him to or not.  But free to what?  From what only takes you to the door, to stand looking out.  Or maybe standing around on the lawn, feeling good about not being cooped up in the house.  But there's a whole world out there.  If there's nothing worth going exploring, then why would you even get off the couch?
    If God wants us free from stuff, then it's pretty sure that He wants us free to stuff also.  Stuff that will increasingly become clear.  Good stuff.  Because it's not just a case of God allowing us to be,  being willing to let us be, a tiny bit freer than we'd been led to believe.  It's so much more.  It's about God needing to free us, because He needs us freer than we currently are, in order to ensure Jesus didn't die for nothing much, and in order to do what He wants to do with and through and in us, next.

    Seeing exactly what it is we've been doing that's dumb, ineffective, twisted, cowardly and weak is one thing.  Actually wanting to try something else, though, is what's required to finally take us somewhere.  Knowing what we haven't, until now, been terribly good at, is one thing, but the decision to try to get better at it, to face the 'negative' as part of understanding the whole, and become better seems terribly worthwhile.

    I mean, avoiding looking at harsh realities isn't "being positive."  It's being blind.  And wallowing in the unpleasantness is perhaps a token step toward bettering things (insofar as recognizing that things need to be bettered), but only a token step.
   I think we have to look at most of it (pleasant, unpleasant, whatever) and lay aside the comforting idea that we more or less know what's what, and start new, sometimes.  I think we should be opening our minds to rethinking stuff.  To God.  Today God. Not fossilized God.
   I think hope comes from that process.  From trying to be more good things.  Not just imitating or resolving (even, for example, resolving not to say anything negative to one's spouse at all today, Love Dare style), which is only about restraining or forcing outward behaviour.  Actually looking to be transformed inside by the work of Christ over time, and become (inside) a living, growing, saner, braver, loving, strong person.  That's where it's at.  And that stuff only comes from God.  Who clearly has Stuff in mind for the future.