Facing Life

But is he happy--the man who trusts in God? He ought to be. We may not be able to go quite so far as George Santayana who holds that "happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a sad and lamentable experiment"; but we do believe that Christian faith ought to run to happiness. Despite the noble sadness of some Christian souls, we must believe that trust in God, though it confer no immunity from the darts of outrageous fortune and may, indeed, compel us to bear the cross, should make us happy.

In "The Achievement of Personality," a book by Grace Stuart, she makes the point that "we have need for love, significance, security, and God if we are to be fulfilled and happy." If we have God, we have all the rest.

Love. "God is love." Trust in God means that, though we lack or lose human love, we know we are loved, and that means we love too.

Significance. Christ says we mean so much to God that He gave His Son to save us--and as though to make it more clear, He adds that the Father knows the number of our hairs as well as our names. What is that but the soul's assurance of significance, even though the world takes no account of us?

Security. As for security, where is it to be found but in the arms of the Father? "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

Yes, to be fulfilled and happy, we must have love, significance and security. And that is what trust in God means to us.

Unless one has faith in God, a faith to believe there is something to live for beyond this transitory existence, how can he be really happy? He may say, "Let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die," but that is not happiness, it is just putting on a front. There may be some transient pleasure, but all the while, even amidst his pleasures, he is under the gloom of a sense of doom.

"I am as happy as an angel," said the Countess of Huntington, and repeated, "I am as happy as an angel since I became a Christian."

Happiness is the natural experience of Christians. People in love should be happy, and a Christian is a person in love with Christ and people. He has a remedy for the causes of sadness. He need not suffer from remorse, for his sins are forgiven and removed as far as the East is from the West. He need not be sad at the thought of dying, for he has the promise of eternal life. He need not be afraid, for his future is in the hands of his heavenly Father. He need not be lonely, for he has a Friend who promises to be with him always, never to leave him alone. He need not feel useless, for he is engaged in the greatest enterprise in the world.

God meant us to be happy. We are made for happiness as surely as the organ was made for music. Happiness may not be quite a sine qua non of life, but we are better as well as more companionable, and more useful, when we are happy. This would be a better world if there were more happiness in it.

Dr. R. W. Dale, a famous British preacher, confessed as he drew near the end of life that he had begun to ask to be forgiven for something for which he had never asked forgiveness before. He asked God to forgive him for the sin of gloom. Any Christian who has been going around with a face clouded with gloom, ought to echo that prayer.