Optimism

The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”
“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”
The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?”
“But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
Judges 6:11-15

How did Gideon view himself when the angel appeared to him? He saw himself as weak, unable, powerless, the least of the least. But Gideon was already known in the heavens, and by the Lord of the Heavenly Armies (Adonai Tza'ot) Himself as a mighty warrior. God searches our hearts, He looks at things not as always as they are but how they can be, I dare say will be, as we surrender our way, and plug the Lord's directions into our heart, which is our navigational system. Pilots learn to trust their instruments, flying where they cannot see...in the same way, we are to walk by faith, not by sight.
As fathers, mothers, spouses, friends, leaders, encouragers, how do we see and respond to others? How do we view ourselves?
Do we condemn when there is a stumble, if we or others get off the narrow Path, or do we put our arms arounds them, get face to face with them, and tell them-GOD HAS A GREAT PLAN FOR YOU AND IT'S GOING TO BE FULL OF HIM. The omniscient and omnipotent God loves, hopes, and believes in each of us...what a staggeringLy awesome thought.
We are already famous in Heaven and there are volumes in the annals of the Library of eternity, that will declare what we will yet become, the victories that lie ahead, all for God's purposes and ultimate Glory.

He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed–the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
Romans 4:17b