Isaiah 47-49

(January 4, 2015)

                I think we tell ourselves that happiness is something reserved only for the righteous, and I believe that ultimately this is a true statement.  The problem is that our definition of happiness has been so changed through the years that the claim has been stood on its head and no longer means what it once did.

                We think of happiness as having enough (or having what we want).  There is no guarantee that the righteous will have enough food to eat, and there is certainly nothing preventing the wicked from acquiring the possessions they desire.  So happiness cannot have anything to do with material possessions.

                We think of happiness in terms of popularity and friendships.  But being a disciple of Christ often means walking that path alone (or, at best, with a couple very good friends).  The only friend we can count on is Christ.  The wicked, on the other hand, tend to be surrounded by people who are pleased to be in the presence of someone who rejects the Lord in the same way that they do.  So happiness cannot have anything to do with our social relationships.

                Having lived righteously in the past, and having lived wickedly in the past, I feel myself in a good position to compare the experiences.  I experienced positive things and reverses in both conditions.  The one thing that was not the same, however, was what I can best call peace.  This peace is a synonym for the happiness that is exclusively reserved for the righteous.  The wicked can gain the possessions or relate to the people that they choose to, and they will almost certainly enjoy their lifestyle of choice (if they didn’t, they wouldn’t live that way).  What they lack is peace, and they don’t even realize what a loss that is (I didn’t).

                The Lord’s statement, then, is overwhelmingly true in my experience – there is no peace unto the wicked.  The wicked can duplicate many of the trappings of happiness, much as Pharaoh’s sorcerers could duplicate many of the miracles of the Lord when Moses confronted them.  But the wicked can do nothing to bring peace to their souls in the quiet moments (that is why the wicked are so metaphorically loud in some ways) – nothing, that is, other than repent.

                And, of course, this also means that regardless of what is happening to us we should be able to identify the peace in our hearts.  If not, then we need to repent – because if the peace in our hearts is absent the problem is not out there, but within ourselves.