Proverbs 15:17 ESV
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+15%3A17&version=ESV]
Modern society is ridiculously wealthy by historical standards. You and I, simply by having the electronic device that allows us to read this, have surpassed the vast majority of people who have ever existed. We have the ‘fattened ox,’ and yet we find ourselves so often miserable. Our society is, as a whole, miserable, people tormenting themselves and others, and all while we feast on the metaphorical fattened ox. Why doesn’t prosperity correlate with happiness?
Let’s start with an admission. It’s easier to be content and happy when life is easier. Having enough food, good prospects for the future, and a good night’s sleep will make everything a lot easier. So we can say this: prosperity isn’t directly inimical to happiness. But, once again, it doesn’t seem to be directly productive of happiness either.
America has problems. We have health problems, money problems, law problems, and soul problems. We’ve got some more problems I didn’t list. We’re immensely wealthy, compared to a hundred years ago, and our society feels like its scant decades from collapse (or less, if you’re a pessimist). In politics, it almost seems standard to hate the other guys. In religion, Christians are ever more marginalized, told to mouth the culture’s whims on a delay or else. We’re an unhappy society, even before we get into gender and race and baby-murder.
The fattened ox, of course, isn’t the real problem. No, the problem is that we have turned our backs on our Creator. This is not a new problem. Every society that’s ever existed has been made up of sinners. In those societies, the majority, which God’s people have not permeated to the point of transformation (and even in these, due to the imperfection and blindness of the church), these words of Christ hold true: “The world… hates Me because I testify about it that its works are evil” (John 7:7).
No matter how fattened the ox, we are a world of sinners, and we forge misery out of gold as much as out of dirt. Misery, after all, is the final end of any man who spurns God (Is. 66:24). He refuses all eternal surety, all eternal good, and so the sinner turns stubbornly towards the just judgement of God.
What, then, is the remedy? We have an answer in three stages: the individual, the short term, and the world as a whole.
First, for the individual, turn to Christ. In Christ, even the meager herbs, however pleasant, are unnecessary to true joy. In Christ we can find everlasting joy, though all the world rage against us. In Christ we can say, though all sorrow assails us, “It is well with my soul.”1 In Christ, the fattened ox is but a reminder of His overarching and omnipotent mercy (Col. 1:17). The Lord reigns in heaven, and therefore we can have joy on earth and in the earth to come (Is. 64:17-18).
Second, in daily life, seek to honor God; seek to cultivate love first for Him and second (in Him) towards others. The first of the two parts of the law is to love the Lord above all else, but the second is to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). We can cultivate true love in our relationships, and in that cultivation find true happiness. We must remember, though, that true love is not mere softness; to truly love someone is to seek their good and to honor God therein. A father’s love is discipline, and a friend’s love is reproof. Cultivate love in righteousness, and remember the forgiveness of God in forgiving those who wrong you.
Third, in the world beyond, we can look forward and work towards a world more conformed to Him. On this earth we will never reach full perfection, but He has conquered already. Though we see only a little part of it (an unpleasant part at that), though our children’s children see only the start of it, God is working in this world to do His good pleasure. To transform the world to love Him and to love each other in Him is not a futile goal, merely one that needs a very long-term mindset. It is a goal, too, which we accomplish primarily by faithfulness in following Him and in loving others- parts one and two of the remedy.
We in this world shall not see the fullness of the joy of His love. We are sinful still. We are blinded by our sin, insensible to His grace and His love, half-hearted only in our best moments and forever turning aside from righteousness. Yet we can look forward to that feast of completion and commencement which He has promised us, when the fattened ox shall be overshadowed by the love of God, the final Passover.2 Truly, truly does the angel say to John, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9).
God bless.
1 – “It is Well With My Soul.” Horatio Spafford, https://hymnary.org/text/when_peace_like_a_river_attendeth_my_way.
2 – I didn’t even get into the importance of the ‘dinner of herbs’ in light of the use of ‘bitter herbs’ in Passover (Num. 9:11); I highly recommend looking into the matter yourself.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
