It always blows me away. On one level, it doesn’t seem to make
sense. But the more I think about it,
the more sense it does make. This week
I read another report confirming this surprising truth. Research shows again and again that: “Being better educated, richer, or more
accomplished doesn’t do much to predict whether someone will be happy. In fact, it might mean someone is less likely
to be satisfied with life.”
Do you get that?
Being richer or smarter, even generally more awesome, won’t make you
happier. It might even make you
less. Almost forty years ago, three university researchers compared two groups. One
group had recently won a big prize in the lottery, and the other had recently suffered
tragic accidents that paralyzed either their legs or whole body. Now,who do you think showed greater levels of
everyday happiness? It was the folks
who had been paralyzed. Granted, it
wasn’t a huge difference, but it was definitely there.
Most of the things people think will make them happy
don’t do that at all. So what
does? What truly brings a life of
contentment, happiness, even joy, even in the face of the worst that the world
can throw at us? In these words from
Romans, God shows us the way. Let’s
hear what God has to say.
If circumstances don’t really bring happiness, what
does? Here God tells us. Happiness, even joy, comes when we know two
profoundly true things. Even in the
worst things we face, God will work for good, and when it comes to the truly valuable
things, no circumstance, no matter how hard, can take away.
But let’s first make it clear. When Paul writes that God works all things
together for good for those who love God, Paul isn’t giving some sort of
sentimental, bumper stick sentiment. He
is not telling us something like every cloud has a silver lining. Paul knows.
A lot of clouds don’t. He quotes
later a psalm that talks about people being slaughtered like sheep. He quotes those words because he is talking
to people who are getting slaughtered just like that. And
Paul knows. There is nothing good in
that.
Do you know what the shortest verse in the Bible
is? It’s two words. Jesus wept. And those two words tell us everything about
how God views suffering. Where was
Jesus weeping? He was weeping at the
tomb of his friend, Lazarus. Yet get
this. Jesus was getting ready to raise
Lazarus from the dead. So why was he
weeping? Shouldn’t he have been more
like, “Hey, everyone! No worries. I got this.”
But the fact that Jesus was about to bring Lazarus back, did nothing to
lessen the pain of Lazarus’ suffering or the suffering of those who loved
him. God hates suffering. God hates disease. God hates death. And
what God is saying to us is that. If
you love me, if you stay focused on my purpose, I will never let those evil
things have the last word in your life.
Even out of those things, I will find a way to redeem them for good.
Now, in one way that we look at this, this promise
of God makes sense. As Paul points out
here, God chose us with the intention of conforming us to the image of his son,
to the image of Jesus. And in life, you can think that your worst
problems are your circumstances. But
you’d be wrong. Circumstances cannot
destroy your life the way your character flaws can, your foolishness or pride
or blindness to your faults or most deeply the profoundly mistaken belief that
you don’t need God in your life at all.
But what knocks our character flaws out of us? Usually, it’s facing hard things that does it. When you go through suffering, that
suffering has the potential to grow you in ways that the painless parts of your
life could never do. Each of us has things
in our life that have caused us pain, sometimes incredible pain, but through
that pain, we’ve learned things. We’ve
developed ways of dealing with life that we would not have had otherwise. With every bad thing that happens in your
life God can and will use it to conform you more deeply to the image of his
son, to the image of Jesus. And in the
end, you will have no lasting joy, without that image of Jesus, being formed in
you.
But of course that doesn’t address the biggest
question. In your life, and in the lives
of others, you will encounter situations where you will not be able to grasp or
understand how God might be working to bring about good. You will not be able to see it. So, don’t expect to.
What if I had been there on the day Jesus died? If I had just known what everyone else knew
on that day, what would I have seen? I
would have seen a man who I knew to be incredibly good, who had healed the
sick, who had welcomed with love everyone.
I would have seen him tortured, brutalized, mocked and killed in a
brutal miscarriage of justice. I might
have known that religious leaders had behind it all. I would have heard him cry out how he was
forsaken even by God. Now, what would I
have thought? I would probably have
gone home, doubting that God even existed.
Why? Because, in no way could I
see how in the world God could be doing anything good in that. Yet in reality, in the midst of all that ugliness,
God was doing good, the greatest good in history even.
God is always working good, but just because God is
always working it, doesn’t mean you can always see it. In reality, you and I will have times where
we will not.
The great Christian thinker, Augustine had a helpful
way to think about it. Have you ever
looked at a tapestry? Those things can
be stunningly beautiful, breathtaking works of art. But have you ever seen the other side? It’s a mess or at least, it
looks like a mess. Threads of every
color are going everywhere, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Only when you look at the front, it becomes
clear. All that seeming chaos has
created remarkable beauty. But this side
of heaven we only see the backside of that tapestry. We cannot see how God is weaving a tapestry
of love and goodness even in the midst of suffering and evil. But God is. And when you think about it, does it make
sense that we would see it?
Recently I read that how our senses perceive reality has no real
relation to what actually exists. Now it
works for us. It keeps us alive for
instance. But the world we see, and the
world that in reality exists are two very different things. Now if we can’t even accurately perceive the
basic aspects of the world around us, what makes us think we could accurately
perceive the work of a being infinite in understanding and power?
But beyond knowing that God is working even in the midst of the hardest
things we face, we can know more. We can
know that nothing we face can ever take away what truly and ultimately
matters.
When people think about religion, they generally think that
religion is telling us how you can connect to God; how you can rise up to
God. But the gospel tells a radically
different story. The gospel talks about
a God who comes down to connect with us.
And when God comes, this God doesn’t come in power. This God comes in weakness and poverty. Why? It
is because God is showing us that he has not come for the strong and the certain.
No, this God meets us even in our
weakness, even when nothing seems certain to us. When
we feel as we have nothing, we can know.
God is there. For this God does
not come with a list of expectations for you to meet. No, this God comes to give you a love without
conditions, a love without end, a love that nothing, not even death can defeat. And
when you realize that, that your standing with God depends on a love that God
has for you that is utterly unshakeable; that this God will never abandon you,
then that realization gives you a profound confidence. You know that no matter what the world takes
away from you, it can never take that ever.
And in the end, that love is the only thing that truly and ultimately
matters. When you know that, even when
you have nothing, you know even then, you have everything you need.
The pastor Dan White tells a story of a homeless woman and her
three kids who were getting settled down to sleep in the gymnasium that
sheltered them. She told him how she and
her kids had fled from the abuse her husband had been inflicting on them. Then she shared that every night she requests
extra dinner portions from the local shelter, and then brings it back to her
spot in the gym. She then invites others she’s met on the
street to join her in her family’s corner of the gym. She sets up a dinner, dividing the food up
equally, and then prays for each one’s needs around the circle. She explained to Dan that she felt it was
important to be generous, to give them a sense of family, even if she didn’t
have a home herself. And do you know
what she told him? She said. “I feel so fortunate to have what I have.”
How can that woman carry such joy and generosity, even in the face
of so much lack? She knows that she has
something that no loss can ever take away from her. She can set up that table of welcome and
generosity in that gym, because she knows about this table. She knows what this table proclaims.
At this table, God says to you, I became utterly forsaken, so that
you can know you never will be. I went
through suffering and injustice to show you that in the face of whatever evils
you face, my love will always have the last word. I paid the price for your failings with all
that I had, so that I might give you all you ultimately need, my grace, my
forgiveness, my faithful love. I died so
that you might have life, abundantly, now and forever. And when you know what this table proclaims,
when you know it to be true, then no matter what you face, you can have peace,
happiness, even joy.
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