Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told ABC news yesterday that President Obama need to show Americans that there is a way out of this financial crisis.

“I like trying to educate the American people about the dimensions and scope of this economic crisis. . . . I like the fact that he didn’t come in and give us a bunch of happy talk,” Clinton said in an interview aired on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I just would like him to end by saying that he is hopeful and completely convinced we’re gonna come through this,” he added in the latest of a series of TV interviews this week.

It is hard to be optimistic if you are reading the news and watching new elements of this crisis unfold each week. Yesterday’s news was about a possible nationalization of America’s banks. The news sent shudders thorugh the stock market, already at decade lows. Obama has been making the financial crisis his “9/11″ and war on terror. Barring anything worse, it will be the event that defines his administration.

Having hope and optimism in these time is a challenge. People know things are out of whack but are caught in a strange twilight land between wishing everything returns to normal to a sense that something big has happened–bigger than anything in our lifetime.

I am drawn Jeremiah’s act of buying a plot of land when Jerusalem was surrounded by armies and the city and kingdom was about to fall. His cousin asked him to buy a piece of land and Jeremiah said yes. Here is part of the account in Jeremiah 32

And Jeremiah said, “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 7 ‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, “Buy my field which is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.”’ 8 Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the LORD, and said to me, ‘Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD. 9 So I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle who was in Anathoth, and weighed out to him the money—seventeen shekels of silver. 10 And I signed the deed and sealed it, took witnesses, and weighed the money on the scales.”

The point of the exercise was to show God’s intent for the future. Jerusalem would once again be inhabited. Property would once again be bought and sold. Commerce would resume. Land value would be stable.

Notice: 15” For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.”

Jeremiah made a practical decision with his purchase. There is the lesson for us. Be wise and be practical when it comes to managing your life and your finances during this crisis. Don’t throw up your hands in despair and wail that life is not fair or blame circumstances on someone else’s hideous greed. Take charge of the decisions you make and be a responsible adult. You can survive and prosper during this downturn.

If your lucky your prosperity will be more spiritual than material. You will realize status is fleeting, power shifts and salvation does not lie in wealth. Learn these and other values and you will survive any crisis.

Now that is truly something to hope for.