If you glance at Jesus and gaze at evil, you cannot help being a pessimist. But if you gaze at Jesus and glance at evil, you cannot help being an optimist. For you see that evil has seeds of its own destruction in it. ... The word evil is the word live spelled backward. - E. Stanley Jones

Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! (Hebrews 12:2-3, MSG)