Prosperity and Happiness.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal about suffering.
(I know you’re tempted to stop reading because I undoubtedly have sucked out any joy that was in the room prior to your reading this buzz kill of a sentence. Fight the temptation.)

Lets try again.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the human condition, suffering, and prosperity.

My thoughts on these three topics were stirred more so over the past week as conversations with wise and endearing friends breezed between stories of personal pain to the theological validity of the prosperity gospel. And I began to weigh the reality of suffering against the teachings of the prosperity gospel.

Ready. Set. Go.

What immediately comes to mind when the words ‘Prosperity Gospel’ enter your cognitive processing center? Personally, I think Aston Martin, Bill Gates’s money, and an endless supply of York Peppermint Patties. In short, material wealth immediately jumps to the forefront. I think of the distortion of scriptures like, “Ask and you shall receive," etc. I think mega churches, a large spinning golden globe, and tithing for the purpose of getting back 10 fold what you’ve given. I think material. We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl. This form of the prosperity gospel, the “God wants to/will give me the things I want because He loves me,” is easily spotted by most Christians whose roots are deep in scripture’s soil. So many of us scoff and wonder how people are so easily led astray by these distorted teachings of God’s word. Many of us find ourselves outraged by false teachings on material blessings and heartbroken knowing there are sheep who are being led into the greener field only to find it is a mirage.

However, many of us miss another form of the prosperity gospel. For the sake of brevity, lets call it the ‘happy gospel.’ The ‘happy gospel’ is a form of the prosperity gospel. However, this message is not fixated on the material but on the emotional. The prosperity preached is one of emotional blessing and positive circumstances.

This version of the prosperity gospel is subtle and oh-so-hard to weed out because it is based on some truth. We should pray boldly and believe for God to move in our circumstances: healing, delivering, and redeeming. I believe in a God who responds to prayer. We should be transformed by the Holy Spirit and the Living Word in a way that eliminates the lies we believe about our Heavenly Father and ourselves. We should stand firm on truth and hold fast to the belief that God is our protector, our source of life, and always in control. Our minds are to be made new and renewed.

But this prosperity gospel, the ‘happy gospel,’ candy coats these nuggets of truth in a way that seems. . . well . . . misleading. If you listen closely, these messages begin to sound a bit like the message of Peter Pan: Think happy thoughts, sprinkle on a little God dust, and we can fly! Even worse, these messages (often one-liners dropped into a sermon full of Biblical truth) sound a bit like new age karma. Believe for the positive and it will happen. Mind over matter. As the happy gospel tiptoes down the very thin and blurry line between truth and false doctrine, I find I am more and more concerned by the potential damage it could cause to newer believers.

Enter from stage left: Suffering.

As I mull over the prosperity gospel, my mind wanders away from the immense gold plated road of blessing to the side road of suffering- a rocky, barely visible, and almost un-traversable pathway. What happens when these Christians, subtly taught that their way of thinking somehow dictates God’s response to their circumstances, smack against the concrete wall of pain? What happens when the blessings of happiness from our positive thinking stop falling from the sky and we crash and burn into the crater of difficult life situations? What happens when a daughter is diagnosed with terminal cancer or a husband has an affair? What happens when a soldier doesn’t come back from war or a single mother loses her house? What happens when it seems as though God is not answering or isn’t even there at all? Will these newer followers of Jesus begin to ask, “But I prayed so hard and believed that God would intervene! Why didn’t He? Did I not believe hard enough?” God is all of a sudden reduced to the size of a child who is expected to play by our rules. Faith becomes a formula and righteousness becomes the power of positive thinking instead of sanctification done by the power of the Spirit. We start to sound like we are once again living by the Old Covenant, except this covenant focuses on our checklist of thoughts instead of the Hebrew checklist of actions.

At one point or another during this 95 year long stroll threw the woods with Jesus, we all will trip over the question of suffering and ask how this misplaced rock ended up in our path. But what if the ‘happy gospel’ is setting up Christians to run into the wall of suffering in a way that prohibits them from finding the window to crawl out the other side? What if the ‘happy gospel’ is subtly altering individual’s views on grace, righteousness, and the sovereign power of God? Houston, we have a problem.

My prayer is that we are reminded daily that God is bigger than our finite minds. God is bigger than my false beliefs. He does want to crush the lies whispered by the enemy so that I may know His character. God is bigger than my fears. He does want me to let go of my worry and trust in His provision. God is greater than my most positive thinking and wise enough to know what circumstance in my life will bring Him the most glory and bring me a step closer to knowing Him.

God cares about my emotional well being and my circumstances. But God also cares about my transformation into His likeness and my knowledge of His character. More than being temporarily happy and positive, God wants me to know the still and peaceful joy that resides only in a relationship with Him- a joy that persists regardless of my present circumstances or my state of mind. Although the peachy-keenness of positive thinking is a great attribute, what if real positive thinking means being able to lift my hands with tears streaming down my face and praise the Author of my Faith declaring that though I do not understand why I’m suffering I know that my Savior will bring me through it and on to eternity’s shore.

This blog post is already long and I feel as though I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I’m really trying to hit on. This post may be too much to follow, and hard to understand if you haven’t heard the type of sermon or subtle message I’m talking about. I hope to provide a clearer picture over the next week. If you have concerns or questions, as always throw em at me.