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God never promised us a rose garden
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Wednesday, June, 16, 2010
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by John Fischer
Remember the song by R.E.M., "Smiling Happy People?" Why has that always made me think of Christians? Somewhere we have gotten the idea that our primary witness in the world is to always be happy, always bright in countenance, always on top of things. We even have a name for it: victorious Christian living.
In my church growing up there was a leading surgeon who was a great Bible teacher, with an effervescent personality and an inextinguishable positive attitude. I never saw him but that he wasn't bouncing on his tiptoes. Whenever he spoke, he had a voice that would wake the dead, and when our families would go out to dinner together, he would say the blessing in a tone that made the whole restaurant have to pray too. I'm not suggesting that any of this was not genuine -- I believe it was -- but he was held up, at least in our family, as the epitome of a victorious Christian. He was the standard for the rest of us. However short you were on measuring up to Dr. Byron's attitude and countenance was how short you were on true spirituality.
No wonder struggling people struggle even harder around Christians. It ought not to be so. I think part of the problem is we've got Christianity offering people what God never promised to deliver. Often this smiling happy life is hung on John 10:10, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." "Abundant life" it's been tagged, and it sounds like a pretty good deal. But is what we think of when we hear "abundant life" what Jesus meant?
I wonder if we look at the abundant life through the glasses of the American way of freedom, democracy, the pursuit of happiness, wealth, success, individualism -- in other words, everything Americans desire and aspire to. Jesus might as well have said: "I have come to bring you life in the form of the American dream." Somehow I don't think that's what He meant.
My own study of the Greek word translated "abundant" reveals that it is basically a superlative of the former word, "life." It means Jesus came to bring us life and more of it. Part of the word implies "all around" or "circumvent" which might carry the idea that all aspects of life will be deeper. Whatever you get with life, you will get more of it with Jesus, all the way around. More sadness, more joy, more suffering, more glory, more pain, more gain, more rejection, more love... in short, more of everything. It's just an all around bigger life. And I also think it has something to do with significance -- a life that has meaning beyond this life. It's a life with a life #2.
So that leaves room for all of us, and all that we are going through. As one of our readers has commented: "Bottom line I believe that God knows that we need the depressed personality as well as the happy, happy gang. I guess to keep us grounded. I believe that Christians need to get hold of this concept and quit relating a heart in tune with God being only manifested in a big smile. I believe that God can work through a tear as well as a smile."
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