A Little More Perspective

Yesterday's post raises this question: How can people who have less than nothing be overflowing with joy, yet people who have everything are always so unhappy?

God always seems bigger to those who need Him the most. And suffering is the tool He uses to help us need Him more.*

Those Africans who live in cardboard boxes or under torn and tattered sheets, who are surrounded by waste and stench too terrible for our civilized senses, who have no money for food and no arms or legs to even find food...those are the people who have a joy that manifests from deep within and shines brighter than the sun.

They have to trust God. They have no other hope.*

They literally have nothing. We, in our comfortable recliners drinking sodas and eating potato chips, have no idea what that even means.

"There's nothing to eat around here!"

"I have nothing to wear tonight!"

"There's no phone service out here!"

"They're out of the brand I like!"

What if our lives were different? What if we were born in a desolate slum somewhere instead of the Land of Plenty? What would we say then?

"I have no food to eat this week."

"I have nothing to sleep under while it rains tonight."

"My little girl doesn't have a shirt to wear."

"I don't have legs to walk on."

Can you see how those people would have no other choice but complete and utter dependence on God?

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. -Psalm 34:18

Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in Him and He will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. -Psalm 37:5-6

Some who suffer choose to blame God and hold a grudge. But those who recognize their need to cling to Him hour by hour share sweet intimacy with His very Spirit.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. -2 Corinthians 4:17

People who are stripped and laid bare before the Maker - whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually - and choose to believe His promises...those are the people who know true joy.

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*When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada