by Tommy Karlas
What thing if you lost it would almost mean you lost the will to live? What thing if you lost it would mean almost all significance and value would be lost from your life? We all have something we depend upon for our happiness, worth, identity, security, etc… We all put that weight on something whether it’s social status, money, career, fame, family, beauty, or a relationship with someone, romantic or otherwise. We all have that thing we think about that makes our life worth living. It makes us want to get out of bed in the morning and gives us our worth and security. It gives us our identity and purpose and is the lens through which we see ourselves. It may be something we already have or something we strive for. It could be something materialistic or something intangible. It can be conscious or sub-conscious.
Some will know right off the bat what that thing is while many of us may be completely unaware of it. We might even think and say its one thing but deep down it’s really something else. Regardless, we all have something we put almost all our faith in. We all have something we, in a sense, worship. The only problem is, no created thing or person can bear that weight because if we lose it, our world crumbles and life doesn’t seem worth living. Or because it suffocates under the pressure we put on it to deliver our happiness and worth as a person. And most of the time, the thing is not even bad in itself. It’s only when we put our ultimate value on it that it becomes bad.
The Bible has a very old-fashioned, even unattractive, word for this thing: idol. When we hear the word idol, we tend to think of a golden calf or something like that, but an idol is any created thing you look at to give you what only God can give you. The Bible says what psychology shows; we all naturally worship and serve something other than the Creator in our natural default mode. But when you take even a good thing—a finite, created thing or person—and make it an ultimate reason for being, it will crush you. It will always end up breaking your heart or eating you alive. And the most insidious thing about idols is they are often unconscious; We’re not aware of them which gives them even more power over us.
To put it another way, we all have a God-shaped hole inside of us that only God can fill. I know my younger readers may be the hardest to convince of this because when you’re young, you have the idea all these things will fulfill you so you invest everything into them. We think to ourselves: “I’ll be happy someday when I get: rich, married, famous, successful, someone’s approval, etc…” Or you can worship things like your looks or independence or intellect or what other people think of you. If you worship intellect, you’ll always feel dumb and worried about being found out. If you worship your beauty, you’ll always feel ugly and die a thousand deaths on the way to old age every time you look in the mirror. And so often when we finally get those things, we wake up the next day to find we are still the same people we were the day before. How many famous people have we heard about who at the peak of their fame overdosed on drugs? How many times have some of us put all the weight of our happiness on another person, then when disaster struck because of it, we escaped into work or partying or drugs or food.
There was something great in the yearning of the thing but it ended up unable to satisfy and deliver on the promise it gave us. Often because our happiness depended upon it. I think the more we live, the more we find that St. Augustine and C.S. Lewis had it right; if you find a desire in your heart that nothing in this world can give you, it must mean you were made for another world ultimately. We all have something called hunger; well…there’s such a thing as food. We all have something called thirst and there’s such a thing as water. What about this deep yearning inside of us that no earthly thing can fulfill?
And this is where we can see the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is dependent upon circumstances whereas joy transcends circumstance because our ultimate hope is not in this world…it’s in a loving God who came to earth and lived the life I should’ve lived and died the death I should’ve died. It’s in a God who became a man and emptied Himself of all His glory and power and payed a debt for me that I could never repay. And all He asks in return is that I have faith in Him. That I try to know and serve Him and love my neighbor as myself. Not for His good, but for mine.
None of this means that everything will go our way or that we will escape pain and suffering. And sometimes the answer to our prayers are no. But if we can trust in the perfect goodness of God, and know He works all things for the ultimate good of those who love Him, then we find a peace beyond understanding that only grows stronger with time, regardless of circumstances.
