I had a friend once who said that those in prosperous
circumstances, those that grew up in a safe, comfortable home environment, have
a unique ability to help people in emotionally shattering situations because
they haven't been broken down and therefore can see things clearly. Prosperity is something that we don't really
know much about. Most commonly, we say
that it leads to pride, which leads people to fall. Those of us who are prosperous have
difficulty coping with our own prosperity.
We seem naturally prone either to take for granted what we have or feel
irreconcilably guilty for our blessings, as if the simple fact that we are
prosperous and others are not is at least partially our fault. Some are driven to "give back," as
if prosperity was some kind of bargaining chip that fate was using to convince
them to be more charitable.
If that perspective seems overly cynical, understand that
paired with the opinion of an insufficient general comprehension of prosperity
is the realization that ease is paradoxically one of the most difficult things
in life to handle righteously and objectively.
And, to stack paradox upon paradox, one of the best places to look for a
better understanding of prosperity is the life of Job, the man best known for
trials and tribulations.
You
see, for most of Job's life, all he knew was prosperity. "His substance also was
seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels...and a very great household;
so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east" (Job
1:3). In fact, he was protected from
anything that could possibly harm him, a fact that the devil made abundantly
clear: "Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and
about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed
the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land" (Job 1:10).
I don't know how many other people
besides myself have felt that protecting "hedge" that seems to keep
away most major catastrophes. Possibly
not very many; it's hard to know what people around us have been through. Maybe for some people the hedge wards off
most kinds of disasters, but one or two get let through for that person's
benefit.
It's
natural to believe, just as the devil did, that inexperience with traumatic
events would lead to a lessened ability to cope with them. That is why he said that Job would curse God
if his riches were taken away. After
all, doesn't experience make us tougher, better able to face challenges that we
have already seen before? Yet even
though Job had never experienced anything remotely similar to what he was then
called to endure, he responded admirably.
The
first lesson that I take from this is that if our hearts are right with God, we
can respond to anything well. The second
is that while there is a certain amount of difficulty associated with life, we
don't need to experience every difficult thing we could possibly face in order
to become perfect. A third is that the
fact that other people have been through situations that seem more difficult
than ours does not make them better or worse than us. I believe that some trials in life come
because of good desires that we had
in the pre-existence. And, for some
people, ease and prosperity are a result of similar feelings. Why might this be?
Pretend
for a moment that someone that you love dearly is preparing to experience
something extremely difficult. You knew
that there was a way that you could help them, but it would require extensive
suffering on your part. Would you do
it? I believe that some people would. What if helping them meant that you needed to
be in a position of power? I'll leave
the reader to connect the dots.
God
designed our lives specifically for each one of us. He loves us, and is ever willing to bless us
with the righteous desires of our hearts.
We vastly underestimate how much effort He invests to bring those aspirations
to pass. But one day we will know. And I anticipate that it will make us very,
very happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment