Last night, I got a poignant message from an old friend: "When do you think I am happiest? Is happiness part of a Christian living?"
The message had an air of nostalgia. My old friend has always struggled with finding happiness and feeling whole. Sadness about past mistakes and regrets clung onto him like a vice. In his most morose moments, he would ask me if I would turn up for his funeral or write him a eulogy. At on point, he had a semi-serious death wish.
The only thing that kept him moving one foot after another in his life somehow was his almost foolhardy trust in Jesus Christ's love and grace. He depended on it so much for his life to mean something. He clung on to Christ's promises that somehow he mattered. When I stood next to him to sing praise songs, i remembered how much feeling he put into the words and how much yearning for hope was etched in his upraised face and palms.
When you think about it, it's crazy. How can the touchy-feely claims of some ancient Jewish madman actually give confidence to anyone? How on earth does knowing Jesus help anyone through their life?
I don't need much to be happy - I just need a friend, a meaningful conversation, a good dream, some random cute stray animal or beautiful Italian sunshine, pretty colours, and I am blissed out.
But this Happiness is a strange, fickle thing. It runs away sometimes when you want it to stay. No matter how much you cling on to it, it slips eel-like away. Happiness can be found in things of this world to a certain limit. After all, there is much that is given to us on this earth that is good.
Pastor Chris talked today about how children tear through their carefully wrapped gifts gleefully, sometimes recklessly, so fixated on the joys of the gift within, without a care for who the giver is. Who cares whether it is Daddy or Grandma who bought me the latest PS2? But when we grow up, we start to realise the best part about the gift is actually the giver. In our adulthood, we have slowly learnt that sometimes we get presents that we do not really like, or cannot really appreciate for now, or gifts that fall short of our high expectations. But nevertheless you honour the giver because you have recognised that the giver's intentions were always more important than the gift. If we want to find real happiness in the gifts we have been blessed with in our life, we need to lift our heads from our mad scramble to give thanks to the giver - God.
At the tuesday fellowship, somebody read an anti-Psalm 23, to make his point about why he was a christian. He said writing the antithesis of the famous Psalm / Serenity Prayer showed what life without christ was like.
"The Lord is not my shepherd.
I shall always want.
I cannot find those green pastures
I will not find the still waters
My soul is unwhole, unrestored
I wander down paths of unrighteousness
Yea, as I walk through that valley shadowed by Death,
I do fear evil:
for nobody is with me;
Nothing comforts me.
Nobody prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies:
Nobody blesses my life and the cup of my life is drained empty.
Surely horror and wrath shall follow me all the days of my life
and I will dwell outside the gates of heaven for ever."
I agreed with him. WIthout God, this would be my life as well and it would be a very dark realisation indeed.
God does not make me happy.
He makes me whole, he restores me, strengthens me and puts a fountain of life in me where there could only have been darkness and despair.
No, God does not merely make me happy. He makes me profoundly Joyful. This Joy sits within me, like a fountain of life, a pool of amazing living water - it underlines everything that makes me happy with even greater clarity; it cushions and overwhelms everything that threatens to put fear and sadness in me.
I am happy, optimistic, tickled plenty of times. I am unhappy, lonely, sad, pessimistic and morose some of the time. But the joy stays deep within, sturdy, unassailable and un-understandable. It goes beyond simple happiness or sadness.
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2 comments:
Thanks for that sharing. Truly knowing Christ is sufficient that makes me thankful and happy. Knowing Christ also gives us a hope that we have in future. No matter what happens to us, we are guranteed of our place in heaven.
Someone just told me a few days ago - as a believer in Christ, nothing is that bad in the world that can happen to us. The worst we face is death but death means we see God! :)
heehee...you actually read the blog before i completed it. was writing it halfway when HKGal called me out for a walk. bummishly posted a halfdone entry anyhow cos i thought nobody would see it so late at night. :P
Death is not the worst actually....sometimes I think Life is the tougher part. I have no issues with dying and leaving a fallen world. But to live and deal with a fallen world lovingly and joyfully? ooOOOOH tough. :)
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