[read The Pursuit of Happiness, entry 1 first]
This article was extremely challenging to me. It’s a ground-shaker during a time of political and economic turmoil and dissatisfaction. A time when I along with several can have fears of losing our liberties if things go the “wrong” direction, I am challenged to remember what we do have, and how we take it for granted. How we have more than anyone could ever imagine, and how losing some of that, we’ll still be better off than most of the world from this perspective. It is easy always to thrust our wealthy American perspective on the world and assume that believers around the world who are persecuted for their faith and existence, are somehow in worse shape than we are because we have new cars, large homes, and 20 kinds of pretzels to choose from at the supermarket.
As my pastor reminded me this week, if we lost our home to financial failure and had to live out of our car, we’d be better off still than 90% or so of the world’s population in material status and health, etc. But what does all this “stuff” lose for us when it comes to spirituality and the priorities of God? Do we rely too much on our government and our possessions to find happiness? Is that the ultimate pursuit? As I continue to reckon with this discussion of happiness and freedom, my devotion booklet again has some interesting insight that was challenging to me and I hope it may find other readers who would consider it.
Below are excerpts from “The Greatest Treasure,” written by RC Sproul, Jr., published in TableTalk magazine, Sept 2008. I hope reprinting this is okay!
Burma, now called Myanmar, is a third-world country in Southeast Asia [and 80% Buddhist]… Last fall the government cut down hundreds of demonstrators who only wanted a touch of reform. It is a long way from the land of the free and home of the brave.
I went there [and] couldn’t help but think of what a difference it would make where these good people to be given some liberty. If only, I wondered, God would bless these people the way He once blessed our country, who knows what wonders they might do?
As…I got to know my hosts [underground christian leaders] and witness their ministry at work in that tragic land, my perspective changed. While freedom is a good thing and a blessing, what they have is far more valuable. These are men and women who are content in God’s grace; whom we would see as the man robbed and left for dead along the road, but who see themselves as the Samaritan. We pity them, but they serve those who are truly in need. These are men and women whose love for each other constructs an alternate nation, a holy nation.
…they are sitting on a surplus of biblical fidelity, mutual love, and true Christ-honoring freedom that we so desperately need on our shores. We don’t need to go over there and rescue them. We need them to come and rescue us.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are wonderful things, blessings from the hand of God Himself. That said, Jesus tells us that if we would gain our lives, we must first die. Jesus tells us that it is His truth, not this political party or that, not this tax burden or that, which would set us free. Jesus tells us that we ought not to be pursuing happiness, but that instead we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Jesus tells us what His priorities are…how we are to live as citizens of the kingdom we are pursuing…We must first be set free from our appetites, our idolatries, our desires for the things the pagans chase after. But if we pursue Jesus and find Him, just as my friends have in Burma, then even the yoke of political expression is easy, the burden of grinding poverty is light. If we have the pearl of great price, hidden where neither rust nor moth, nor thieves, nor bureaucrats can get at it, then we will no longer pursue happiness. We will have found it.
Jesus did not demand His rights, but gave them up. He now rules over all men, and he calls us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
