The Bible is replete with warnings. Those yet outside of His grace are warned of the certainty of judgment. Those weighing life and death are warned to consider the cost before taking up the cross. And those born from above are warned of persecution, hatred, and the many troubles of this world. We all walk the via Dolorosa.
Knowing these biblical doctrines, we are rightly put out by purveyors of popcorn prosperity. Whether it’s vapid promises of health and wealth or smiling faces offering you your best life now, we scorn the notion that God wants us to be happy. There is a certain charlatan appeal to the merry mongers. Who doesn’t want to believe not only that they can be happy, but that someone will provide them a map? But there’s another reason this dark distortion of God’s Word won’t die and go away- God’s Word.
The same Word that calls us to take up our cross told us that He came to bring life, and life abundant. The same Word that warns of persecution tells us that if we ask our Father for an egg, He will not give us a stone. The same Word that tells us how to be abased promises to tell us how to abound. The same Word that gives us the sorrows of Job tells us “Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.” (42:12) One cannot choose either the idea that good times and pleasant circumstances are the will of God for all men everywhere, and every time, nor that God exclusively uses hardship and paucity to shape us for blessings that all reside on the other side of the vale.
The truth is that God’s will for His own is that we would be made ever more like Jesus. The glory of suffering and hardship is that it is potent to move us in that direction. It is a good thing to face dark providences and loss with joy precisely because such does the good work of making us more like Him. That doesn’t mean, however, that when we find ourselves in a bed of roses we are far from Him. He is the Great Gardener. He is the Groom who loves His bride and delights to shower her with every good gift. Hardship cleanses the bride. Blessed circumstances help the bride remember that she is His beloved.
Both are true, and both are beautiful. Does God want you to be happy? He wants you to both be remade into the image of His Son, and to feel His love and delight in you along the way, to receive the gifts of the bride. In hardship, remember the work He is doing in you, rebuilding you into the image of Christ, the express image of the glory of the Father. In blessing, know that He loves you, delights in you, rejoices over you, because you bear the image of the Son. In all circumstances rejoice, because He loves you.