What Happens When We "Do What the Lord Asks of Us?" (04/05/25)
As much as we strive for happiness, it seems, a lot of the
time, to elude us. Instead the stresses and strains of life bear down on us and
we can become absorbed in them. How well these stressful states were expressed
by the Psalmist who, in prayer, cried out to the
Lord saying, "Have mercy on me,
O Lord, for I am in trouble; my eye wastes away with grief, Yes, my soul and my
body! For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength
fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away" (Psalm 31:9-10). But then, after
this lament, he proclaims his trust in the Lord and says, "But as for me, I
trust in You, O
Lord; I say, You are my God" (Psalm 31:14) And then he
concludes by urging others to turn to the Lord by saying, "Oh, love the Lord,
all you His saints! For the Lord preserves the faithful, and fully repays the
proud person. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you
who hope in the Lord" (Psalm 31:23, 24).
Here was a man who was experiencing grave difficulties in his life and yet
he came to see that if he trusted in and turned to the Lord, he
would be
protected and comforted. When we find ourselves stressed out, the same can be
true for us, and yet we can fail to see this if our minds are focused only on
things of this world. If we are more concerned about worldly than spiritual
matters we will not begin to be aware of all the help the Lord offers us in His
Word; we will not hear Him tell
us that we need Him in our lives and that
without Him we can accomplish nothing of spiritual value. Consider this teaching
when He said, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of
itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I
am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much
fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4, 5).
Do we ever imagine
that without the Lord we can do nothing? That's not the
way it appears to us. A lot of the time we seem to do just fine without Him. In
fact we can think we're pretty smart the way we conduct ourselves, finding fault
only in others. So, why is there any need to pay much attention to the Lord's
invitation to 'abide' in Him? It's interesting to note, if we think about it,
that as long as things are going well it seems there is no need, but once things
start going wrong - when we get into trouble - when we begin to feel we can't
cope with the challenges of life then, suddenly, we experience the need to turn
to the Lord. The Psalmist said, "Have mercy on me, 0
Lord, for I am in trouble."
He acknowledged that he could not do without the Lord and was, only then,
willing to turn to Him for help. Only through suffering did he come to see that
without the Lord he could do nothing really meaningful - nothing really good
that was motivated by his love for the Lord that would bring lasting happiness.
In reality it seems we can achieve many things on our own and even be very
successful in our worldly pursuits
but often not have any feeling of contentment
and true, lasting happiness. This is because we are all flawed with self-
interest and pride and it is these traits that are our motivation and they keep
the Lord out of our lives. The consequence is that we do not make it possible
for Him to bestow His blessings upon us. The Lord warns us, many times, of these
human weaknesses, but if we don't hear Him and respond, there is little He can
do to help us, because He wants to leave us in freedom. We can do our own thing
or we can have the Lord lead us. In the lesson we heard earlier the Lord said,
"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love."
It's as
straightforward as that if only we are willing to listen.
And so we come to see that the Lord's love and the true happiness it
brings is
given to us by Him when we come to love to do what He asks of us. It
is interesting though to learn that the nature of the happiness we enjoy changes
with our various states in life. To begin with, we feel happiness in terms of
material possessions or rewards or benefits for the things we do for others, and
we are told that initially this is permitted, since what appears good to us will
cause us to want to do the right things (Arcana Coelestia 3816:2). For example,
in our jobs or business operations or any other activity we might be involved
in, our motivation may well be for the amount of money we can make, the assets
we can accumulate or the recognition we can gain and not so
much for the use we
can perform for others. In allowing us to strive for these things, the Lord
knows that we will, in fact, provide goods and services for others thereby doing
what is good. On a spiritual level, it may be that we will try to do the right things so
that we will go to heaven, where there is happiness, rather than to hell where
we will
suffer. Our motivation is the reward of happiness rather than the desire
to show our love for the Lord and concern for others.
In both these cases we do things to benefit ourselves and concern
ourselves little about other considerations (Arcana Coelestia 3816:3). These are
our natural inclinations and although the Lord initially allows them, He
cautions us about them. In His Sermon on the Mount He taught the multitudes
saying, "Do not lay up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven" (Matthew 6: 19, 20). The wonderful truths He delivered in
that sermon were given for mankind to look to heavenly rather than worldly
things. The worldly ones, He says, will not last whereas the heavenly ones will
swell our
hearts with love and will become the treasures that will last forever.
We recall that He went on to say, "For where your treasure is, there your heart
will be also" (Matthew 6:21). (Gerald Waters, NCL 2010)
