Find the Pony (Sermon Illustration)
Faith and optimism are closely linked.
When you have faith in God, you know that He is in control. One way or another—in this life or the next—He will make all things right.e
When you have faith, you have hope.
When you lack faith, you have despair.
Consider the following joke by Lee Strobel:
It’s like the joke about the parents of two young twins. One of the boys was a depressed pessimist the other was an incessant optimist. The parents were getting worried because each child’s personality was becoming increasingly extreme. So just before Christmas, the father said, “We need to do something to break them out of their molds.”
The parents decided to put dozens and dozens of shiny new toys in the pessimist’s room, and to fill the optimist’s room with piles of horse manure, hoping this would change their attitudes.
The children went to their rooms for a couple of hours, and then the pessimist came out. “Did you play with you new toys?” the father asked eagerly.
“Nah,” moaned the pessimist. “I never even opened the packages. I was afraid that if I touched them, they’d just break, and then I’d be disappointed.”
That’s when the optimist came bounding out of his room that had been filled with horse manure. He was all smiles. “How come you’re so happy?” asked the dad.
The little boy beamed and said, “I just know that if I keep digging long enough, I’m going to find the pony!”[1]
[1] Lee Strobel, What Would Jesus Say (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 160.
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