Somebody said everybody is born either an optimist or a pessimist. I know full well what I was born. I was born a pessimist. Furthermore, I was brought up to be a pessimist. In my home if you weren’t worrying, you should be worrying about the fact you weren’t worrying. I was saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit and had a ministry but I had not overcome pessimism. And the expression it took in my life was depression. And although other people were getting saved, I was struggling ceaselessly against this dark cloud that settled down over me. And I did everything. I knew the Scriptures fairly well. I knew that you had to reckon yourself dead and I reckoned myself dead so many times it just didn’t have any meaning. But it didn’t solve the problem. And then one day I was reading Isaiah 61:3 and I read:
“...in place of the spirit of heaviness the garment of praise...”
When I read the phrase “the spirit of heaviness,” the Holy Spirit said to me, “That’s your problem.” I suddenly realized I wasn’t dealing with myself. It wasn’t my mental attitudes, it was a person that was tormenting me day and night. I realized he was a person that had known me from childhood. He knew my every weakness, he knew just when to attack me.
Furthermore, I realized it was what we would call a ‘familiar spirit’. It was a spirit that had come down through my family. I identified exactly the same condition in my father. I called on the name of the Lord and I was delivered from that demon. Oh yes, I was saved, I spoke in tongues, I preached the gospel. But I needed to be delivered from a demon.
I was so ashamed of that that I didn’t tell anybody for ten years. But then the Lord forced me out into the open by confronting me with a demon possessed woman in front of my pulpit on Sunday morning. I had just been preaching that no matter what the devil does, God has the last word. There was this woman writhing like a snake in front of the pulpit, the same woman who used to play the piano for our worship meetings. I knew I either had to prove it or stop saying it. And that was when I was thrust out into the open. And, that woman was delivered. But it took me ten years from the time I was delivered myself before I was willing to face the issue in public.
Once I was delivered God showed me He had done for me what I could not do for myself. But He would not do for me what I could do for myself. And He showed me I had to change the way I thought. Every time a negative suggestion or reaction came to my mind I had to meet it with something positive out of the Scripture. And that did not happen overnight, it took at least three years. But by the end of that time I was no longer a pessimist.
Romans 12:21 says:
“Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil by good.”
We have two options and only two. We can overcome or we can be overcome, but there’s nothing in between. When we’re confronted by evil there’s only one thing that’s strong enough to overcome evil and that is good. We cannot take a negative attitude, we cannot simply say it’s not my problem. We have to actively practice that which is good.
Dear Lord, please help me to never fall in the trap of having a negative attitude. Please remind me through Your Holy Spirit to always confront any negativism with a promise in Scripture, in faith in Your wonderful goodness and might. Thank You, Lord, that You are truly Lord, and that You let everything work together for the good of Your children. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
