Happiness in Humanity
Posted by: ba <ba@...>
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Straight to the Cross
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COLUMN: Final Phase
Happiness in Humanity
by J. Randal Matheny
"We cannot seek happiness in things exterior to
ourselves, so we must seek it within humanity."
So said the psychiatrist Saturday night as he sat
across the table from me at the birthday party of
a mutual friend's daughter.
How sad he must be, I thought, looking for the
wrong thing, and in the wrong place.
How can one believe in the evolution of humanity
after the wars and suffering of the 20th century?
This man, like so many others, is clinging to a
myth in the face of overwhelming evidence of
humanity's growing evil.
But, like the psychiatrist, we are tempted to cut
God out of the picture and paste it over with
human hopes and helps. With man we can count
dollars and (war)heads. With man we can negotiate,
barter, dicker, and deceive. With man we manage to
maintain a semblance of control. With man, we can
measure ourselves and still find a scale that puts
us on top.
Not with God. With God, faith pokes out the eye.
With God, the powerless wins. With God, no
counter-offer turns his head. With God, our finger
on the button withers before his sovereignty. With
God, all scales to measure worth drop to zero.
Man has nothing to offer. "Stop regarding man in
whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is
he?" (Isa. 2:22, ESV). He's a consumer, not a
supplier, and a bad one at that. He confuses right
and wrong, miscalculates distances, and generally
leaves a mess behind him.
But not God. Moses had it right in his last words
to Israel: "Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like
you, a people saved by the LORD, the shield of
your help, and the sword of your triumph!" (Deut.
33:29).
The search for happiness is selfish and thus can
never find its fulfillment. Neither can I make
myself happy, for what little knowledge I have of
myself leaves me discontent with my failures and
shortcomings. Only when I search for God and find
in him the answer to my needs will I discover that
which I gave up seeking. But now it is the
happiness of possessing God, or rather, being
possessed by God.
As one psalmist knew, "It is better to take refuge
in the Lord that to trust in man" (Psa. 118:8,
ESV). But my psychiatrist friend won't admit it.
The question is, will I?
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