The Lost Mindset for Enduring Difficulties and Daily Happiness

We live in a very soft culture that has created very soft people. We can’t put up with much difficulty. We quit easily. The underlying reason for this is that we think we deserve better. We are entitled creatures in a brutal world. I would borrow a question from Dr. Phil: “How’s that working out for you?” Not very well. We are unhappy creatures when we are feeling mistreated by life, others and ultimately God.

I was recently impressed by a couple named Adoniram and Anne Judson. They were the first Baptist missionaries from the United states sent in the year 1812. They went through a lot during their first three years on the field in Rangoon, Burma (present day Myanmar). They served alone with no English-speaking teammates. They had the learn the language on their own with no tools and then translate the Bible while writing a dictionary and grammar book for the language. They struggled much with tropical diseases and opposition from the government. They also would go months between receiving any financial support and would need to survive on the kindness of the locals to feed them. They had no earthly assets, no property, no bank account, no 401k, no hospitals and no friends within days.

But those things all seemed light compared to what happened in their 3rd year on the field. Anne had just given birth in their home with no medical care to their eldest son Roger Williams Judson (great name for a Baptist baby, btw). Seven months later Roger died of a tropical disease. Anne and Adoniram burried their baby boy and mourned his loss for four days. On day four they figured that there was no value in further sorrow so they got back to the job of translation and gospel proclamation. Four days later!?!?

The second Sunday after the death of baby Roger, Anne writes a friend of hers back in Massachusetts about her emotions. In this letter Anne communicates the mindset that allowed them to continue serving the Lord through this fiery trial which surely would have ended the missionary service of most today including myself. I was so impressed by the one big thought in this letter that dominated Anne’s theology that I immediately read this letter out loud to my wife.

I am including the full letter here so that you can get a full sense of the communication:

“The sun of another holy Sabbath has arisen upon us, and though no chime of bells has called us to the house of God, yet we, two in number, have bowed the knee to our Father in heaven, have invoked His holy name, have offered Him our feeble praise, have meditated on His Sacred Word, and commemorated the dying love of a Savior to a perishing world. Inestimable privileges! Not denied even in a land where the Prince of Darkness reigns. 

Since worship I have stolen away to a much-loved spot, where I love to sit and pay the tribute of affection to my lost darling child. It is a little enclosure of mango trees, in the center of which is erected a small bamboo house on a rising spot of ground, which looks down on the new-made grave of an infant boy. Here I now sit; and though all nature around wears a most romantic, delightful appearance, yet my heart is sad, and my tears frequently stop my pen. You, my dear Mrs. Lovett, who are a mother, may guess my feelings; but if you have never lost a first-born, an only son, you cannot know my pain. Had you even buried your little boy, you are in a Christian country, surrounded by friends and relatives who could soothe your anguish and direct your attention to other objects. But behold us solitary and alone, with this one single source of recreation! Yet even this is denied us; this must be removed, to show us that we need no other source of enjoyment but God himself! Do not think, though I thus write, that I repine at the dealings of Providence, or would wish them to be otherwise than they are. No; “though he slay me, I will trust in Him,” is the language I would adopt. Though I say with the prophet, ‘Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, yet I would also say with him, ‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.”  

Notice the last line of her letter, a quote from Lamentations 3: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” Anne counted anything better than consuming destruction of fire on her to be merciful from God. Why? She was thoroughly and theologically convinced that she deserved nothing from God, nay, not only nothing but she deserved his wrath, his punishment.

So, when she suffered all of these things in His service culminating with the death of her first born baby, she sorrowed but she did not despair. She recognized the unique depth of her sorrow compared to her friend back in the US. But she was not bitter. She lived the theological truth that we all say we believe but so often but do not live: that we DESERVE only wrath from God. And God gives us his mercy by not destroying us and his grace with any blessing.

We know this. We say we believe this. But we don’t really know if we believe this until we suffer great loss, greater loss than any friends or family in our social circle. Then our emotions and actions show if we think we deserve some kindness from God or not.

So here is a happiness hack for every Christian: lower what you think you deserve from God. Lower it to nothing and then lower it even further to destruction. When you are thoroughly convinced of this, you can really be happy every day in every circumstance. For He has not consumed you but given you salvation in Christ in his mercy. And then by his rich love He has heaped blessings by his grace upon you. And these things will always be true of every Christian until the day you die. So you can be happy every day.