What is the meaning of life? These days the meaning of life, at least in the developed world, seems to be the pursuit of happiness. A pastor friend of mine mentioned how he was at a parent-teacher meeting at his kid’s school and the teacher asked all the parents what they most wanted for their child to get in life and without exception every parent except my friend and his wife said they wanted their child to be happy.
This is meant to sound noble – instead of caring about grades, or prestigious careers, or becoming rich and famous, they just wanted their children to be happy but putting all the pressure on being happy creates a whole new set of problems.
The Impossible Goal
If you make happiness your goal in life then anything that gets in the way of that goal is the enemy; and since we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people it doesn’t take long for things to get in your way.
The dictionary defines happy as, “delighted, pleased, or glad”. Now I’m not sure about you but I’m not delighted when I get sick when I was meant to go out to something I’d been really looking forward to. I’m not pleased when I have to clean up a mess our cats have made. I’m not glad when a natural disaster occurs and causes carnage in the world.
Some of us are fortunate to have more happy moments in life than sad moments but what about the vast swathes of people who have more sad moments than happy moments? What comfort can we offer them?
The Danger of a Life Based Solely on Happiness
If the focus and goal of life is happiness then if something happens that significantly diminishes that happiness, it follows that that person’s life is no longer worth living.
Simona De Moor is a Belgian woman who decided she wanted to be euthanised after her adult daughter passed away suddenly. She decided five minutes after it happened and three months later she died by euthanasia. In another case an 11 year old child was euthanised because they had cystic fibrosis.
The world has turned suffering and grief into things to be avoided at all cost – even at the cost of ending your life. When happiness becomes the god of your life, then suffering and grief become the ultimate enemy and the only way out becomes death.
God is no stranger to suffering and grief – he grieves over his people’s pain and he grieved to see his son go through the horror of the cross, he also encourages us to look forward to when there will be no more grief but in spite of all this he doesn’t villainise grief and pain and treat it like it is something to be avoided at all costs.
Joni Ereckson Tada was seventeen when she had a diving accident and became a paraplegic paralysed from the neck down. Her whole future crumbled before her eyes and she faced a lifetime of pain, suffering, and incapacitation. She is now 73 and she is an author, artist, singer, radio personality, and disability rights advocate. She has transformed millions of lives by creating an international disability rights organisation that does advocacy and provides things like wheelchairs to developing countries as well as sharing the good news of the gospel with millions of people. She was also able to get married to a wonderful man and they are still together now.
When her accident first happened she was miserable and distraught but as time went on she discovered that God was still there for her and that he still had good plans for her life.
Suffering Turned to Good
Suffering grieves God’s heart but he also uses it for good. Joseph (in the Old Testament) is thrown into a well and sold into slavery in Egypt but that leads to him interpreting the Pharaoh's dreams and saving the nation from starvation.
Joni relates her suffering to that of Joseph – something good coming out of something awful – she says, “Suffering is a platform from which the Gospel goes forth. Had my accident not happened, Joni and Friends wouldn’t exist. But God is using this ministry to reach thousands of disabled people for Christ.”
Our suffering often creates opportunities to help other people, even if it’s not on a global scale like Joni or Joseph it can still be of huge importance. Going through suffering such as illness, disability, loss of a loved one, infertility, difficult family dynamics, work struggles, or any manner of life issues makes us more compassionate to others who go through the same thing and more able to help them in a way that is most useful.
Our suffering also helps us grow in character. We’ve all witnessed the effects of a child who is given everything they want whenever they want it and it is not good. Although God does not like it when we go through suffering and trials, he uses it to shape and mould us and we come out of it better.
God’s Solution to Sadness
God also has a solution for pain, suffering, and grief but his solution is not death but life! Jesus came to suffer and die for us so that – in spite of our sin and rejection of God which brought us into our current state – we may be forgiven of our sins and reconciled with God so we can inherit eternal life!
This great and glorious act of God is able to bring us a sustaining joy that cannot be destroyed by life circumstances because it is based on something that can never change or be taken from us!
As we continue through life with that wonderful truth in our heart and the encouragement that God uses our suffering for our good and the good of others, we can also look forward to the wonderful promise of the new creation as described in Revelation chapter 21, verse 4 where it says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Jessica McPherson lives with her best friend and husband, Eoin and their family of rescue animals in Christchurch. She loves reading, writing, photography and scrap-booking but most of all sharing God’s love and truth with a hurting world. Jessica is particularly passionate about encouraging children and building them up in gospel truth.
