“Why should I cherish in my heart a hope that devours me – the hope for perfect happiness in this life – when such hope, doomed to frustration, is nothing but despair?”
– Thomas Merton
Thoughts?
5 thoughts on “Thoughts On A Quote”
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This quote sure fits how I have been feeling lately, asking God why life has to be so hard sometimes, & not just for a few days or months, but years. I’m not discounting that there are blessings in my life, though those seem few at the moment (but I’ll take them! and I’m thankful for them!); I am still suffering the backlash of the evil choices of others. I would still choose to do the right thing, knowing that this trial would ensue, but there are days when I cry out “How long oh Lord will You forsake me, how long oh Lord will You look the other way, how long oh Lord must I wrestle with my thoughts and everyday have such sorrow in my heart? Yet…I trust in Your steadfast Love” (Psalm 13).
I know our true joy is not of this world, and people who have endured trials more severe than mine have done so without all the whining and complaining I sometimes find myself entertaining, but I think this is a condition with which all humans wrestle at some point or other. I think we all hope for perfect happiness, even though we are doomed to be frustrated by such hope; yet, the alternative is not to hope, and therein lies true despair – death lingers around such despair, so hope we must.
People like to quote Jeremiah 29 and say God has an individualized life-plan for each person, but the passage is actually a letter to an entire people-group, not to any individual, and the people who were alive when it was written did not get to experience the goodness of the words because they had to go into slavery and endure some real hardships so that future generations of the people-group could have the goodness as promised. Only a couple hundred years ago did the “me” emphasis get put to this text and the hardships that followed were overlooked. It gives me pause. Our culture is so full of self and riding on God’s grace that we individualize everything rather than consider context. And though God loves us, maybe no one gets the fairy tale ending in life because we live in a fallen world with people who have free will and some of those people choose evil. There are consequences to choices and sometimes you or I suffer because someone else made an evil choice, a choice that batters our hopes for perfect happiness to the ground. Yet…we can trust that God is not simply watching from a distance without care. The Holy Spirit came to be with us so we would be comforted in these trials. We do not know the ultimate purpose of why we are allowed to walk through any circumstance. I can’t say God doesn’t have an individualized plan for everyone, though it is more logical to assume He has plans on a larger scale and sometimes individual people take on roles for parts and pieces of it. I personally look at the lives of the five women mentioned in the Bible who were part of the lineage of Jesus. Only one got to know she bore that great honor by bearing the Son of God in the flesh. The others endured some pretty rough times before blessings and they never knew this side of Heaven that they were given a great reward and honor because it came generations later. We see their lives from the end but they lived them in real time. I imagine each one wished for the perfect happiness too.
So I guess we take what we can get and trust in God for the rest.
Most of our emotional hurts in life arise from unrealized expectations, and the author of this quote appears to hold some unreasonable expectations. How can we, in this fallen world, reasonably expect perfect happiness in this life? We can expect perfect joy, but that’s not the same as happiness. Joy arises from abiding in and living in Christ. Happiness comes about as a result of positive externals, and positive externals are precarious at best.
This quote reminded me of the importance of Paul’s words in Philippians 4:8:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.” (NIV)
Life is often hard, and it beats people up. If we focus on the painful and troubling things in life, we are doomed to live a less victorious life, while here in earthly flesh. No matter how bad things get, there is still beauty to be found. We must fix our eyes on Christ and allow Him to open our hearts to the beauty all around us.
May your today be especially blessed.
I love Thomas Merton’s writings! What jumped out at me about this quote is the object of hope. The hope for perfect happiness is a selfish, me-centered hope, and that’s what makes it doomed to frustration. Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Prov. 13:12a). It’s misguided, displaced hope in something or someone that can’t produce results. Conversely, making God the object of our hope is a sure thing because He is faithful to keep His promises. However, He does not promise perfect happiness in this life, and warns us to expect trouble. The problem comes when we demand now what we cannot have until later. His promise for us now is His presence in a world saturated with evil and hate; later it will be His presence in a perfect Kingdom saturated with His love. Hope in that promise is a “desire fulfilled” (Prov. 13:12b). A great book on this topic is “Shattered Dreams” by Larry Crabb.
hate to be one of those guys who answers a question with a question.. but if someone asked me this quote i would have to respond with “what is perfect happiness?”
if the answer is anything other than Christ centered, it is a failure to understand hope. Thomas could have easily made similar statements about faith and love leading to nothing but despair and my response is the same… without Christ there is no faith, hope or love. they become empty virtues that lead to empty happiness.
the tougher problem would be if Thomas defined perfect happiness as seeing his children have a relationship with Christ. my response for this would be that Christ’s hope does not devour people. if someone is feeling like hope is devouring them it is because of a lack of understanding of Jesus. just as ocean water doesn’t cure thirst, because of the salt the water becomes despair. there are many things that become “salt” to the virtues from God and we must be very careful to not let our lives be contaminated.
anyway, i’ve wrote A LOT more than i intended.. and there can be SO much more disceted from this quote..(it doesn’t say how long perfect happiness is supposed to last and could actually be achieved BECAUSE of the frustration and despair..) i gotta stop.. sorry for my many unwanted opinions. i honestly got on here to post somewhere about how great it was to see Todd in Dayton Ohio tonight. i wanted to stick around to say hi afterwards but didn’t feel i had anything smart to say… still don’t.. maybe next time.
Contentment = Happiness
this is a very general statement, but true. (especially when Jesus remains the center of your life) it’s that simple to say and so difficult to achieve, especially in western civilization.
Perfect Happiness = Knowing Jesus Loves me despite my failures and treason.
because!
i’ve been up a good portion of the night with a new foster baby (just eleven days old). My hope, is the hope of a future where every child has a home and is loved and well cared for…What is despair? It’s our attempt at having hope in a world filled with sin…my hope lies not in this life, but the one to come where there will be no more foster babies, they will all have a home and a parent who is free of drug addictions and the other things that mess our lives up here on earth. The best I can expect here on earth is that God will continue to reveal himself in my despair, so that He can use me to glorify Him. Thank you Jesus for giving us an eternal hope, not a fading, dissapointing and despairing hope.