Job, the ideal realist

A realist is someone who views things as they really are. An idealist is someone who views things as they should be. A few weeks ago I heard someone say that we need more realists and fewer idealists. This may or may not be true, but it nevertheless made me think. 

Job might be the ideal realist. He blessed God for all that was taken away. (Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.) He also took a broken piece of pottery and scraped his flesh because of the pain of the sores from head to toe. (Satan...smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.) The glory of God and the pain he felt were both very real to him.

A. J. Kirkland used to advise that we have to deal with things as they are, not with how we want them to be. Great advice, as long as we don't forsake pursuing going from the way things are to how they ought to be. And as long as we remember that both how they are and how they ought to be and how they will be are worked together by God for the good of those He loves.