During Sunday School last week my wife leaned over and whispered, "See? You need to take it easy on Oprah."

"I didn’t write a single word about her school," I whispered back. "Now, you gotta admit, that’s real progress, isn’t it?"

My wife does have a point, though.

Sometimes my columns are a little "negative" in tone.

That’s because, sometimes, I’m a little "negative" in tone.

Recently though, I have become aware of this flaw and I have therefore tried to shift my focus toward the "positive."

But it’s a real struggle.

I’ve noticed that people, in general, as they get older, often become more negative, and sadly, this has become true for me as well.

Older people, when confronted with new ideas or different ways of doing things often say things like, "Awww… That will never work," or "you’re just wasting your time."

I really don’t want to turn into one of those "negative" people, but it’s true that life hardens a person over time when we gradually realize that life often does not go as planned.

Dreams sometimes don’t come true, and that’s one of the hard parts about growing up.

When you’re young, you dream and you reach for the stars, but when you get older you come up against a reality that often is much different than what you imagined.

On the other hand, sometimes life plans things for you that you didn’t plan for yourself and sometimes those plans are even better than the ones you made.

Our Sunday School class has been watching a series of videos produced by a woman who has a unique perspective on what life as a Christian is and what it should be.

After each video segment, our class breaks into groups and we discuss questions related to each video lesson.

I find this part of Sunday School especially meaningful.

The group discussions give real insight and perspective into the different topics. The different things said by members of the class give me a lot to think about.

This past week’s focus was on the importance of being submissive before God.

We talked about the book of Job and the lessons contained within that book.

Job certainly had a right to be rather "negative" but he managed to remain true to his faith and submit to God’s will, in spite of the awful circumstances thrust upon him.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord," Job said.

It’s hard to imagine one person remaining so strong and submitting to God’s will in the way that Job did, but perhaps Job understood somehow that God’s will is not for us to understand in this world.

Perhaps that’s what faith is all about – believing without understanding.

This has been a hard concept for me to grasp. When one lives in a world ruled by fact and logic, it’s hard to bow down to a higher power and submit to that power and believe, even when there’s no logical reason to believe.

Life has taught me to question authority, question other people’s opinions, question everything, indeed that is not supported by facts and hard evidence.

But I now am beginning to see that it is not necessary to question one authority in particular. You can’t ask a question without saying something, but in this case I think it’s more important to listen.

I look forward to next week’s lesson.

I think I have a lot to learn.