Crumbs From Your Table

 If someone offered you this choice, what would you do? You could have £50,000 a year for the next ten years, or a £5,000,000 lump sum in ten years’ time? Tough choice? Would you grab the money while you could or wait ten years to get ten times as much?

Now let’s apply the same principle to happiness. If you were offered the choice of a reasonable degree of happiness now or maximum happiness at some future point, which would you take?

Now, these are somehow trick questions. And rather unlikely to happen in real life. The concept behind them is whether we are willing to accept instant gratification, or are prepared to wait for something better. And this is where the trick lies – the answer to the questions is BOTH! We can experience happiness in both the short and the long term! It’s not either/or. And if someone insisted you could only have one or the other, tell them you don’t accept the premise of the question. 

I want to relate this specifically to the Christian life now. It has often been said that Christianity is all pie in the sky when you die. That is, a miserable life on earth with the promise of a future glory and joy in Heaven. But this is a false premise. The Christian life is not meant to be a miserable one. It’s meant to be a joyful one – even in the midst of suffering. Yes, there is pie in the sky when you die, but there are crumbs from the table while you live. Tasty crumbs. 

Things we associate with the Christian life are not meant to be a chore. Praying is talking with our Father, not trying to twist the arm of a grumpy skinflint. Reading the Bible is discovering more about God, not wading through a confusing old book. Going to church is communally worshipping the God we say we love, not a Sunday morning borefest with a bunch of people we don’t like. And so on… 

And yet, we can easily approach the Christian life as if it’s something we do begrudgingly. It is intended to be a little bit of Heaven on Earth; a taster of the future to come, not some sort of penance. The Christian life samples the crumbs from a heavenly table which awaits us. If it is anything else in our experience, we need a rethink. 

Sure, it’s not always an easy life – anything but! However, with the right motivation, the sacred moments and the secular moments in the life of the believer can be happy ones – a happiness based not on circumstance but on the promises of God. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is always with us. He is always Good and His intentions toward us are always good. A knowledge of His character will transform us.

Remind me of this if I start moaning…