| ON
THE HUMAN CONDITION
He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope
for the human condition is a fool.
--Albert Camus (1913 - 1960), The Rebel (1951)
A new vision of development is emerging. Development is becoming
a people-centered process, whose ultimate goal must be the improvement
of the human condition.
--Boutros Boutros-Ghali
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it
is always wrong
--H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956), Mencken's Metalaw
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would
simply do as I advise.
--Gore Vidal
You can do anything you think you can. This knowledge is literally
the gift of the gods, for through it you can solve every human problem.
It should make of you an incurable optimist. It is the open door.
--Robert Collier
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ON BEING HUMAN
with all of its faults
(Based on the Teacher's Commentary (c) Scripture Press
Publications, Inc)
It’s all right to be human.
The Bible tells us that in Creation God viewed people, the culmination
of His creative work, and affirmed that work as “very good”
(Genesis 1:31). Humans, the Bible says, were made in God’s image,
and we are taught to value our humanity. As people we do bear a certain
likeness to the Lord.
Sometimes, aware that sin has entered the race and warped humankind
out of the intended pattern, Christians have come to view their humanity
with shame and guilt rather than pride. A person who tends to locate
the identity of humankind in our character as sinners, rather than
in our nature as those who bear God’s image, is likely to repress
human feelings and emotions. Struggling for “control,”
such people may be uncomfortable with strong emotions and may attempt
to hold them down or to deny them.
The Bible really does teach us to affirm
our value and worth as human beings. Psalm 8 speaks
in wonder that God should have created people “a little lower
than the heavenly beings” and “crowned him with glory
and honor.” Hebrews 2:10 echoes the thought that we are never
to let slip the awareness that God’s intention in Christ is
to bring “many sons to glory.” Christ calls Himself our
brother; He was “made like His brethren in all things”
(Hebrews 2:17, NASB). Far from being ashamed of his humanity, the
Christian is free to rejoice in who he is, knowing that in Creation
and in redemption God has affirmed our worth.
When we read the Psalms and see in them our own emotions and struggles,
we find a great release. It is all right to be human. It is all right
to be ourselves. We need not fear what is within us or repress the
feeling side of life.
Reading the Psalms carefully, however, we note that they often trace
a process in which the writer begins with strong and almost uncontrollable
feelings. We see how he struggles with them, and we see how he brings
his feelings to God or relates them to what he knows of the Lord and
His ways. In reading Psalms, you and I can learn how to handle our
emotions creatively, and how to relate feelings to faith.
Psalm 73 is a good example of this “working
through” process. It begins with the writer
confessing that he has become envious of the wicked—certainly
not an unusual experience when we face difficulties and then see everything
going well for the person who cares nothing about God!
The psalmist shares:
I
envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They
have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are
free from the burdens common to people; they are not plagued by
human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves
with violence . . . . They say, “How can God know? Does
the Most High have knowledge?” This is what the wicked are
like—always carefree, they increase in wealth. Surely in
vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands
in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished
every morning.
Psalm 73:3-6, 11-14
How
hard it seemed! What good was it to be good? Frustration,
envy, self-pity—all had gripped Asaph, the Levite who wrote
this psalm, and who now faced rather than repressed his inner state.
The passage goes on to explain how the writer handled these feelings.
First of all, he tried to think the problem through, but “it
was oppressive to me” (Psalm 73:16). He went to God with his
problem, to pray at His sanctuary. There God gave him an answer.
Asaph’s thoughts were directed to the end toward which the
sinner’s life leads.
Surely
You place them on slippery places; You cast them down to ruin.
How suddenly they are destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!
As a dream when one awakes, so when You arise, O Lord, You will
despise them as fantasies.
Psalm 73:18-20
The
easy life of the scoffers had led them to forget God,
and their success had not permitted them to sense their need of
Him. The very wealth and ease which Asaph had envied were “slippery”
places that Asaph’s trials helped him to avoid!
This new perspective changed Asaph’s feelings. His past feelings
were “senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before You”
(Psalm 73:22). His emotional reactions in this case had not corresponded
with reality. Yet, when God showed Asaph reality, his emotions changed.
Yet
I am always with You; You hold me by my right hand. You guide
me with Your counsel, and afterward You will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but You? And being with You, I desire nothing
on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength
of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:23-26
Real
life always holds such struggles for us. There is
nothing wrong with them. The emotions we feel then are not bad;
they are part of being a human being. The glory of the believer’s
privilege is that, because he knows God, his emotions can be brought
into fullest harmony with reality. You and I can face all of our
feelings—and find freedom to be ourselves with the Lord. What
a privilege to be ourselves with God, and to experience His gentle
transformation!
We can be honest with God.
This is a third great message of Psalms. Just as we need not repress
our feelings, we need not try to hide our feelings from God. He
loves us and accepts us as we are—yet always so creatively
that we are free to grow toward all that we want to become.
How freeing to realize that God’s
love is unconditional. He is concerned about every
aspect of our lives, inviting us to share all that we are with Him,
that in return He might share Himself with us and bring us to health
and wholeness.
Psalms, then, speaks directly to our inner lives. The patterns of
relationship we find there guide you and me in our prayer lives.
Like the poetry of other peoples, Hebrew poetry is not designed
so much to communicate information as to share the inner life and
feelings of its writers.
This characteristic of the Psalms is very important to us, and is
a dynamic aspect of divine revelation. Through the Psalms we are
able to see the men and women of Scripture as real people, gripped
by the feelings that move us. We are also able to sense a relationship
with God that is deeply personal and real. Every dimension of the
human personality is touched when faith establishes that personal
relationship. God meets us as whole persons—He touches our
feelings, our emotions, our joys and sorrows, our despair and depression.
Faith in God is not just an intellectual kind of thing; it is a
relationship which engages everything that we are. Thus, in the
Psalms we have a picture of the relationship to which God is calling
us today—a relationship in which we have freedom to be ourselves,
and to share ourselves freely with the Lord and with other believers.
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