Thomas Hardy, an english author, wrote one of my favorite novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge.  He also wrote the following poem where he put in words some people’s emotional yearning for certainty about God.  Even the existence of an unjust God, according to the poem, “Hap,” would at least explain suffering in the world.  But Hardy, at least in this poem, finds no answer, and certainly no comfort, in God.  Therefore, “joy lies slain” and hope does not bloom.  Without a God to give meaning to life there is nothing to give meaning to the “pain” and the “blisses” of our piligrimage.  Here is the poem:

Hap

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh:  ”Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so.  How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

Christians, of course, don’t need to despair.  After all, there is a God and He is good.  He has made us to know Him and to love Him.  He has given us good gifts to enjoy.  Though the world is full of all sorts of “pains” we know those pains are not God’s fault–we live in a fallen world, where people choose to go after their own desires instead of God’s perfect will.  The Christian’s “pilgrimage” is one of bliss and pain, no doubt–but that bliss and pain has a purpose.  In our pain we are being sanctified to look more and more like our Savior, Jesus Christ and in our bliss we are given a foretaste of eternal delights.

Do you wonder whether there is a purpose, a meaning to the struggles of your life?  Do you wonder if you have a purpose?  The answer to this question is theological: you were created by God for His glory.  How can you do this?  Love Him (Matt. 22:37); obey Him (John 14:23); trust Him (1John 5:3-4); thank Him (Psalm 100).

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