It would be interesting to see a poll that reveals the
happiest countries in the world and to see whether the religious belief and
happiness correlate. My own view for what it’s worth is they probably do. I don’t think for a moment that the most
religious countries are the most miserable.
I have my theories that the UK is a very unhappy nation, not merely
because of the current political or financial state it finds itself in but also
because of an abandonment of faith in God.
Faith lived properly is about outward-looking service to
others – loving your neighbour as yourself.
I am not saying you need a faith to do that. Faith isn’t always lived properly. Not-yet Christians are sometimes kinder and more
self-sacrificing than those who claim a faith.
Sometimes a faith community can be the most destructive force going.
Faith lived properly is a challenge. Belief in God isn’t
some kind of vaccination against the things that torment and trip us up. Happiness
isn’t the absence of conflict but having a secure path, God’s path, leading
through that conflict.
Last night at the Women Aglow meeting I listened to the
testimony of a woman.
Pat shared her life.
She talked about her adopted children.
She confessed that perhaps if she had known about the struggles ahead
with them she might not have adopted them at all. She wouldn’t have seen herself as being
equipped, but discovered the equipping came with as the journey progressed.
She talked about her elder son’s trouble with drink and
drugs. I thought it would have a happy
ending. When Christians talk about these
addictions they talk about God’s miraculous deliverance and how everyone lives happily
ever after. I don’t know when I realised that there wasn’t a happy ending. She talked about the struggles of his being
at home and the final realisation that they had to tell him to leave. She talked
about treatment of alternative drugs the medical men prescribed, and the flashes
of sunlight that deceived them into thinking he was on a road to recovery. Then
the narrative slowed down. Her eyes were
fixed on her notes. She stopped. Tears started to fall. The words “He was dead,”
were almost whispered.
Almost immediately Pat addressed the words we were all
thinking – “Where was God? Where was the
miracle? Why did God not step in?” God
didn’t take away her son, the drugs and the drink did that. Where was God? With them, giving them
strength and courage to take the next step forward. God respects our freewill
even when it leads us to hurl ourselves off a cliff.
Being a Christian is not about God putting us on a yellow
brick road that leads to an Emerald City where someone tells us to click our
ruby slippers and we go home to somewhere nicer.
It is about learning to live in a hostile world and
always, always holding out peace to people that have none.
Pat spoke about the difficult months that followed.
There was no breathing space as life lurched from one crisis to another. Through it all God was the Rock they clung to. People looked on amazed at how they lived
under such tremendous pressure. Yes, they
broke. They are people, not Kryptonite-enhanced
super-heroes. God restores what has been broken. People are being broken by life’s storms
every day. There is little they can learn from Christians who have never been
broken. They need to know there is a path to repair and restoration for them. Telling
them there is such a path is good but it has its limitations. Watching a
Christian who has been broken walking that path with God is a powerful testimony.
I reflected on my own life and testimony. I thought how
pale and insipid it was in comparison. I
had spoken at meetings myself but suddenly felt that I didn’t have the right to
speak because I had nothing that really mattered to offer people.
God laughed gently.
“Oh, Mel,” He said, “how quickly you have forgotten…”
Memories of my own broken days flooded through my mind. They were not merely days, or months, but
often years - one after the other - when I had walked through such dark days
grimly holding on to God’s hand, letting go sometimes and falling. I sometimes think my pain, visible like some
weeping wound, embarrassed people. I felt alienated a lot of the time. People
looked for the happy ending then, but the narrative of those events slowed
down, and then I stopped and the tears started to fall.
I had forgotten that I was one of those broken ones too –
one of those God-repaired and restored ones.
God reminded me that my life has been anything but pale and insipid.
The key to learning to live in a hostile world and
always, always holding out peace to people that have none is to hold out my own
hand first to God and to not let go.
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