“People Are Going Through A Lot”?

I am human as a human can be. This means I don’t only sympathize with the troubles of my fellow kind, but I also share the same. Yet, my issue today is this famous statement that is all over social media, television and radio talk shows, which says that “people are going through a lot.” Indeed, a lot of my brothers and sisters are finding life harder than they can bear. I can pause here and start to detail true life stories of women who are abused, young people who are forced into drugs, black people who are oppressed, fathers who are underappreciated and mothers who are abandoned. Some even have real physical conditions that have contributed much to their discomfort on this earth. I don’t think it’s even needless to write about the mental stress that people deal with every day, as evidenced by the number of suicide cases. Therefore, my point is not to deny that people are causalities of these circumstances but to express my legitimate concerns about the way we are making much of our troubles to be point of enjoying feeling sorry for ourselves. It is a certain sense of victim mentality that has resulted in another kind of Christianity that is always whining about what people are going through. Even ministers have now changed the pure preaching of the Gospel and are now into self-help motivational talks; it’s now all about “overcoming your situation.” They believe that people need to be helped to overcome the challenges of life, not preached to about sin and judgment, because “they are already going through a lot.” I have discovered a few dangers about this kind of mentality. Let’s look at them.

As a license for evil

I heard of a story where a young lady was found to have strangled to death her newborn baby. Upon being tried by the court of law, she was found not guilty because her lawyer convinced the court that she had gone through a lot of abuse as a child, therefore, she was “not mentality in the right mindset to raise her child.” There are in fact, many cases where evil seems okay because of some ill-fate that people go through. Some employees feel it is okay to steal from their bosses because they are underpaid. While others think that it is a good thing to destroy public property just because the government is doing bad service delivery. I am sorry, but the God of the Bible will never tolerate evil in the name of “I am the victim.” In fact, the message of the Gospel doesn’t say that we are victims that need some emotional healing, but that we are culprits; sinners that need salvation. We are all responsible for the way we live before God and before other people, and we will all be judged accordingly. All men, everywhere, are equally called to repent and to trust in Christ, regardless of their present emotional status (Act 17:30-31).

As I hinted above, even preachers no longer want to call men and women to repentance and have relapsed into self-help “life coaches” that seek to motivate people into a better realization of themselves. They believe that man’s trouble is emotional sickness. The word “sin” has been replaced by the phrase “mistakes &shortcomings. That is concerning on my part.

As a springboard for entitlement

Have you noticed how angry and bitter many are these days? Why? Because as citizens, the government is not giving them enough, as employees, bosses are not paying them what they deserve, as husbands, wives are not satisfying them, and as wives, husbands are not caring for them enough. That is the entitlement attitude. When you are like that, it’s easy to manipulate other people so you could get what you want. Such people are never grateful for anything. Because to them, life is all about making them happy, if not, then someone other than themselves is to blame. You see friend, life is not fair, of course, it’s not! We are given different measures of grace. Most of us don’t get what we deserve, while some get what they don’t deserve. Ultimately, God has been gracious to all of us, because He has not given us the punishments we deserve, no matter how we have rebelled against Him. Even murderers and witches enjoy fresh rain and warm sunshine (Mat 5:45). The best we can do is to be grateful for what we have. I am, of all people, most grateful for the gift of salvation that Jesus freely purchased for me.

Humans and suffering

I am confident that most of us have been living long enough to learn that the earth has all kinds of trouble. The pages of human history are stained with blood spilled through wars, diseases, slavery, natural disasters and God knows what else. Most people lived in societies where there were no police, lawyers and magistrates to protect them from being cheated, robbed and even killed in broad daylight. The point is; our generation is facing far lesser problems than those who have gone before us. Yet they never had time to spend whining about their emotional status on social media and on radio talk shows. It is only in this pampered age that we seem to make too much of what we are going through. For your own information, there are a lot of other people who are already going through far worse than you are right now. Always put that into consideration.

Believers and suffering

Similarly, suffering has also been part of God’s own chosen people. For example, the 1st epistle of Peter was addressed to believers who were facing extreme persecution and hardship. Yet the Apostle spent just a little portion of the 1st chapter comforting them in their suffering, then he moved on to instructing them to live holy lives and everything pertaining to Christian conduct. This means that as believers, no matter how huge and real our hardships are on this planet, they must never be used as an excuse for not serving our Saviour, nor must they take our ultimate joy in Him.

To conclude: this writing is not by any means intended to downplay other people's problems. But my advice is this: let us be careful of how we publicly talk about troubles. In fact, some things are just better kept between yourself and your family. Finally, be careful of self-idolatry, when you draw much attention to what you are going through to get people to pity you, ultimately boosting your self-image so they could follow you. To the ministers of the Gospel, I plead: our primary ministry is not to be motivational speakers and mental therapists (there is a time and a place for that), but the pulpit’s job is to tell people about Christ. Our Gospel is not about solving daily problems that our people face — even making false promises that their troubles will disappear because they gave money to the church. Instead, the mission of ministers is to deal with the real problem that is plaguing all humans in the name of sin, and we give them an everlasting solution; salvation in Christ. That is all for today, thank you for your time.

Sinothi Ncube