It’s hard to resist the charm of Mr. Micawber in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. Micawber is a reckless spendthrift who is constantly in debt, and yet he is kind, warm and constantly cheerful. He’s probably best known for his eternal optimism in the face of poverty, always saying “something will turn up.” Yet the following quotation truly captures his spirit, ““Welcome poverty! Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!”
Our Proverbs text for this coming Sunday, Proverbs 15:13-33, seems to have a little of that Micawber spirit in some of its verses. Verse 13 starts it off with “A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance,” noting the effect that inward cheerfulness like Mr. Micawber’s has on one’s outward expression. But verse 15 especially seems to capture his buoyant optimism, “All the days of the poor are hard, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast.”
Through most of the Dickens’ novel one might suppose that Micawber is hardly an exemplar of the virtues promoted by the book of Proverbs. Indeed, he seems very much the fool, carelessly driving his family further into poverty and destitution. Yet at the end of David Copperfield, Micawber displays not just his endless cheerfulness, but moral courage as he stands up to the villain Uriah Heep with the result being his own financial ruin and loss of a profitable position with Heep’s firm.
Thus Micawber could also affirm verse 16, “Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble with it,” as well as verse 27, “Those who are greedy for unjust gain make trouble for their households, but those who hate bribes will live.”
Micawber’s cheerfulness and indeed his family’s final good ending when he makes good in business after being deported to Australia is really only possible in the kind of universe which Proverbs depicts and in which Dickens firmly believed, a world governed by a good God who watches out for the poor and especially for the upright who do good despite their own injury.
As verse 29 says, “The Lord is far from the wicked, but hears the prayer of the righteous.” That confidence in the reality and attention of the Lord to those who fear Him and seek to do what is right is what makes true cheerfulness possible. Despite all our own foolishness there is a good ending, and “something will turn up” for those who love God and endeavor to follow His ways.
Verse 30 ends, “and good news refreshes the body.” The good news that cheers our hearts and puts a smile on our faces is that God is there and that He has come among us in Jesus Christ, to raise up our bodies and one day settle us in the good place He has for us. Let that good news cheer us up today.