“Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him.”
Ecclesiastes 8:6
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’”.
Ecclesiastes 12:1
“Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more”
Proverbs 31: 6,7
We attack popular and common dogma propagated by the traditionalists because it leads men to have false expectations about the Christian lifestyle. People will try to tell you to ‘have joy’ or to ‘be happy in your faith and salvation’ when happiness has nothing to do with it. God is much more concerned about our holiness than He is our happiness.
Happiness is a superficial emotion that can be replicated with heroin.
The exaggeration of happiness in the church leads some people to question the validity of their faith when they find themselves in a temporary state of total misery. In those moments you say to yourself, “But I am a Christian! Shouldn’t I be happy? Look at my salvation!” But you know in your mind that those thoughts will not save you from misery. You question your faith and the church as a result. You wonder how the life of a person of God could be so painful. This is because you were not told the truth about the faith.
Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24-26). Does that sound like a lot of fun to you? Does suffering for the cause of Christ sound like a great party? Men, we are confusing ourselves if we think in this manner.
It is noble to suffer for Christ, but that does not make it enjoyable.
It is fair to say that very few people in the modern Western world have truly suffered for their faith mentally, physically or emotionally. Those few people who have suffered certainly did not enjoy suffering for the sake of suffering. No rational man enjoys that extreme discomfort for its own sake. Christ is the only one who gives meaning to the pain. It is the promise of salvation from hell and the reward of heaven that makes the suffering bearable, that is what minuscule amount of it we have today.
Men, we are weak and soft. We think that we are persecuted and that we suffer when we do not even know the meaning of the word. The majority of our suffering is in our imagination. This does not stop us from descending into absolute misery.
We detach from ourselves and look at our life and see all the pleasures we are missing out on for the sake of Christ. For everything we are giving up in this life, is it going to be worth it? These deep questions send us spiraling into misery and depression, because we are not convinced that heaven will be worth the sacrifice, and all we know is that we are missing out on a ton of sex. We are in a mental state that is the opposite of the constant happiness that the liberals promise. We do not have any of the joy that the conservatives suggest faith provides. “Is my faith even real?”, we ask as a result. Yes it is, and being miserable is sometimes a part of it. The misery of life, however, does not give us the right to make a big show out of it.
When Jesus instructed His disciples fasting, He told them to not disfigure their countenances like the Pharisees, but to wash their faces and go about their business normally as if they were not fasting at all (Matthew 6:16-34).
The purpose of doing good and going through discomfort for Christ is not so we can act like Pharisees and make a show out of it. We will never convert other people to Christ if our temporary misery is apparent to the whole world.
Misery and discomfort are parts of life and the Christian walk. You will not always be happy and joyous like the radical left and right wing Christians claim. This is perfectly fine. If you weren’t going through some kind of misery at least occasionally, you need to question if you really are a Christian. If you do not regularly wrestle with faith and doubt, what kind of faith do you have? Answer: A blind faith.
Mantra
Misery is the proving ground of faith.
Application
Accept misery as a part of life, a temporary inconvenience on our journey to heaven. Life is uncomfortable, especially for the modern Christian who is accustomed to constant comfort. “Pain” is why we seek refuge in our mindless habits. We watch television, play video games, and roam on social media for hours because these things allow us to immerse ourselves in them, and in doing so we forget about reality, even if only for a moment.
These are drugs that we have learned to justify in our lives. Some of the negative aspects of drugs and drinking can be found in social media and television watching (Poor time stewardship, lack of vigilance etc.). We cannot constantly use these medications as crutches to avoid the sorrow of life. Why God chose to create a world consisting primarily of suffering is a question that currently does not have a good answer. Many males in the church try to answer it, but to our heart of hearts those answers never satisfy. We know there must be more to the story of suffering that we do not yet understand.
After accepting misery, we must learn not to judge the quality of our faith based on our emotional feelings at the time.
People are afraid to accept the sorrow of life because they think they are being irreverent or insulting God by not enjoying the life He gave them. This could not be farther from the truth. Your emotions mean nothing. You need to focus your mind on doing what is right and taking the correct actions, rather than worrying about how you are feeling at any given time.
What God requires from us is our obedience and trust, these attributes can be taken without emotion. So whatever miserable feeling you experience, learn to ignore it.
Get a grip. Ignore your emotions. Take action. Be focused. Stay goal oriented. Be a Man.
Conduct Yourselves Like Men.
