Written by Dawn Rutan
Sunday afternoon I was thinking about the sermon, Wisdom & Envy, and I was convicted to realize that I do struggle with envy in one particular area. It’s not about things—I have more than I need. It’s not about relationships—God has given me the people I need in my life. But I do envy those who seem to have a much more lighthearted attitude toward life than I do. One friend and I have discussed the question more than once—“Is there something wrong with us that we don’t laugh hilariously at every little thing?” (We agreed we’re normal!) We could attribute it to many different things, since personality development is an area of vast research. I’m certainly not in a position to judge those who are different from me.
While I was wrestling with this idea, I was reading a short book I picked up from the church library, God Is In Control, by Charles Stanley. He writes:
“I wonder how many times you have said to the Lord, ‘Dear Lord, I want You to use me. I don’t want a lot of pain in my life, but I’m willing to be used.’ Sorry, God does not work that way. If you want to be used by God, get ready to hurt. If you want to be a comforter, then get ready to suffer. If you want to be someone who can really encourage others, then you must be a person who’s walked through the valley of discouragement, surrounded by hurt, suffering, and loss. God is equipping you and me to be vessels of love, healing, and restoration to a world filled with pain, hate, and fear” (86).
I’m not saying that lighthearted people aren’t used by God. After all, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… a time to weep and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 ESV). However, I think there are a couple practical implications to consider.
1) Perhaps some (or many) people are pretending to be happier than they really are. They may be hiding their pain out of shame or fear. Or they may believe the unwritten expectation that Christians should be joyful at all times. Larry Crabb recounts a story in Shattered Dreams of a friend who told him, “I’m tired of doing great. Just yesterday, I overheard two of my friends talking about me. One asked how I was doing. The other said I was doing great. I wanted to scream.” Crabb goes on, “When life kicks us in the stomach, we want someone to be with us as we are, not as he or she wishes us to be. We don’t want someone trying to make us feel better. That effort, no matter how well intended, creates a pressure that adds to our distress” (123). Sometimes it’s easier to pretend all is well than to be honest about whatever difficulties we’re facing. (And certainly, not every conversation needs to become a counseling session.)
2) Sometimes it is okay to set aside the difficulties and enjoy the moment. If we’re truly trusting that God is in control, we don’t need to continually dwell on the issues until God straightens them out. It’s okay to cry, but it’s also okay to laugh. We may not all be the cackling or guffawing types, and that’s okay too.
Even though I have envied others’ happiness, I wouldn’t trade lives with them under any circumstances. I have learned far more through suffering depression than I ever would have in other ways. Kathryn Greene-McCreight states it well in Darkness Is My Only Companion:
“I had not been praying for my own healing at this point. I do not mean to generalize and say that all mentally ill people should follow me in this. But the only prayer I could muster was for strength to endure this. There were of course times when the shadow of an inkling crossed my mind to pray for healing, but for some reason it did not seem the right thing to do. How strange. It just didn’t fit. Almost as if it were blasphemous to pray for healing, to be rid of despair, to be freed of the horror of bouncing from high to low. I am not called to pray for healing from this, only for strength to endure. This is because I believe that God still has much to teach me through this, and that some of what he will teach I can’t even yet begin to imagine” (130).
Crabb puts it this way, “on the spiritual journey, there are seasons when doing great requires that we feel awful… In their anguish, people on the spiritual journey abandon themselves to God. Eventually they discover their desire for Him is stronger than all their other desires, and in their seasons of misery when life disappoints and they fail, they seek Him more earnestly. Making their lives more comfortable and themselves more acceptable is a secondary concern” (125).
Through sorrow I am learning to seek God first. Sinful desires fall away when my attention is on Him. Even good things do not satisfy if they are not from His hand. I am reminded again that verses like Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart,” and Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” aren’t promises to give us all the good things we desire. Instead, when our delight is in God and we are seeking Him, then He is Himself all that we really desire. It’s not “seek God first and then seek the other things.” It’s “seek God alone and He will be all you really need.”
“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” -2 Corinthians 12:10
