Happiness is Overrated

I hope it comes as no surprise to you that God does not necessarily want you to be happy.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think that God wants you to be UNhappy, but I don't at all believe that His primary goal for us in life is to be happy.

The easy way to show that happiness is obviously not the end goal of a God-centered life is to think of the relationship between a parent and child. The parent does not want the child to be unhappy, but the good parent also knows that pursuing nothing but the child's happiness will be detrimental to the development, health, and - in the long run - true happiness of the child.

For instance - while it may make a child happy in the moment to eat nothing but Oreos, a strictly double stuf diet will inevitably lead to problems down the road that provide a lifetime of nothing but the exact opposite of happiness, so the good parent knows that the child must eat a more balanced diet, which may include things not quite as delicious as Oreos, things which could - potentially - make the child unhappy.

Similarly, when the parent sees that the child is about to drink the bottle of Windex under the sink, the good parent knows that it is in the child's best interest to prevent the child from drinking Windex. The child will possibly be unhappy because the vividly colored (yet oddly scented) Kool-Aid has been taken away, but the child will definitely not have ingested ammonia, which I think we can all say is a good thing.

But that's just the simplistic view. We can all see that the instant gratification of a child who is ignorant to the dangers and consequences of the fulfillment of all immediate desires would be bad. We can see that denying the child happiness in a moment where the positive of the child's happiness would be far, far outweighed by the negative of the consequences on the child's overall health, whether it's in the long-term damages of the Oreos or the short-term damages of the ammonia.

So now let's take it up a step. If a man abandons his wife of 30 years to be with his 24 year-old secretary, but defends his actions by saying, "God wants me to be happy," where do you think God stands on that issue? Does that man's happiness matter to God? Of course. Does God want that man to be happy at the cost of hurting someone else? At the cost of sin?

I Peter 1:13-16 says:

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

And so we can see fairly easily that our lives are not meant to be spent in search of happiness, but - instead - of holiness. We were not created to live our lives enslaved to passions that lead us from temporary pleasure to temporary pleasure; we were created to live a life focused on the Creator of not only our life, but of all life. The idea is made plain - from Genesis through Revelation - that life as we know it really doesn't work the way it's supposed to until we completely surrender everything we have and are to God, allowing His will to supersede our own, molding us back into His image, re-shaping us, taking away the detritus of our exposure to the world. True meaning - and, therefore, true happiness - is only found in a life completely centered on God.

Jesus tells us that the people who have figured out that their own lives mean nothing when compared to God are the ones who are going to be called to experience the full majesty and splendor of the uninterrupted, unfiltered, unaltered presence of God.

The ones who are heartbroken over their own sin are the ones who will be rewarded with comfort.

The ones who recognize their true place in the universe and don't try to impose their will on the world are the ones who will be placed over the whole world.

The ones who understand that holiness and righteousness are just as important to a fulfilled life as food and water are the ones who will experience perfect satisfaction.

The ones who forgive the faults of others because they know that their own faults are no less heinous are the ones who will have their faults forgiven by The One Who Is Faultless.

The ones who have stripped away all other desires and have centered their entire lives around one bright, holy singularity of purpose will be the ones who encounter the One Bright, Holy Singularity of Existence.

The ones who strive to create harmonious coexistence between themselves, their fellow man, and their God are the ones who will be seen as the ones living a life as extensions - manifestations - of that very same God.

The ones who encounter pain, and difficulty, and hardship, and struggles, and enmity, and alienation, and discrimination, and all of the other horrors of this world because of their dedication to holiness, to righteousness, they are the ones who will be shown the true form, nature, and design of Creation, as well as the face of the Creator. The ones who have it bad down here because they are focused on God are in good company. If Moses, if David, if God Made Flesh Himself could not escape the persecution of this small-minded, temporal, unholy world, what chance do we have?

And so now we come to the hard part...

What if the life that God has set out for you, in this world, doesn't include a whole lot of the temporal, here-and-now kind of happiness?

What if your journey towards holiness is one filled with more persecution than pleasure? What if your walk with God is really a climb up a jagged, uneven, steep crag, with razor-sharp rocks on all sides? Nobody ever said the straight and narrow would be flat and steady.

What if God denies your desires - all of them - in order to better fulfill your needs?

What if you're just not HAPPY?

Does that mean that God no longer loves you?

More importantly - and more of an actual question - does that mean that you no longer love God?

When times are good, be happy;

but when times are bad, consider:

God has made the one

as well as the other.

Therefore, a man cannot discover

anything about his future.

- Ecclesiastes 7:14

Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

He enables me to go on the heights.

- Habakkuk 3:17-19

I will admit that I have not yet fully pierced the veil on the mystery of Joy. I am - at times - a rather gloomy man. But I think I still have Joy. I may not have happiness, but I have something else, something that helps me realize that whatever unhappiness I experience down here is merely a temporary setback, and that my Hope is built on things eternal. I have Joy in knowing that even when happiness does come, even though it is only fleeting, I am still on a path towards something greater than any happiness I have ever known, or ever will know, in this life.

I want to be a husband. I want to be a father. I want to be a successful (meaning "well-paid and yet maintaining creative integrity") writer. I want to be a lot of things, and I'm fairly confident in saying that those things would make me a pretty happy man.

But if I am called to forgo the happiness of the family life I want, the creative success I want, or any of the other things I want (like Oreos) in order to attain a life of holiness... Well... I'd say that's a pretty good trade.