Sweet `n' Sour

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"When times are good, be happy. When times are bad, consider: God has made one as well as the other, so a man cannot discover anything about his future" (Eccl 7:14)

Sometime ago it was thought the deeper the poverty the greater the spirituality. Now the pendulum has swung to the other side! Radio, television, magazines and pulpits are filled with the prosperity message. Some prosperity preachers have gone to the extent to say, "If you are saved you must compulsory have health and wealth!"

Well, both the extremes are wrong. God balances the life of His children with times of prosperity as well as adversity. No man of God in the Scripture experienced otherwise. Paul said, "I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!" (Phil 4:12,13). Men of God learnt to praise God with contentment in all circumstances.

The Scripture verse the advocates of the prosperity doctrine quote often is 3 John 2, "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." Even if we should take this text to be fully analogous and applicable to our physiological condition and financial situation, I wonder how many of us "do prosper in our souls."

Is it not that the prosperity of the souls of many of us rather poor and their condition rather weak with anaemia and anorexia? What would be our physical health if God should only bless us proportionate to our spiritual wellbeing? The vast majority of us would need crutches or wheelchairs and would be really paupers! Paul of the New Testament dispensation of grace admits "conflicts without and fear within" (2 Cor 7:5). Lazarus who hadgained heavenly bliss spent his earthly life in want and hunger.

Faith is not a magic wand to get whatever we need; or living in want and suffering an indication of poor faith. Hebrews Chapter 11 strikes a good balance. By faith they "received" as well as "offered." By faith they "prospered" as well as "suffered." Read the Chapter as a whole. How will it be if there is only day and no night, or, only night and no day? (Gen 1:5). Oh what wisdom of God!

For life's an experience God's children go through
That's made up of gladness and much sadness too...
But we have to know both the bitter and the sweet
If we want a good life that is full and complete!
                                                      (H.S. Rice)  

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