I just want to be happy!

In case you had not noticed, we can be pretty shallow as a society. We value things like success, beauty, wealth, popularity, athletic abilities and the like. But these things do not bring lasting happiness. How many people who win substantial amounts on the lottery finish up with ruined lives? “I will take my chances” I hear people saying. But riches do not bring fulfillment, beauty fades like the flower, today's heros become tomorrow's disillusioned as the fickle crowd moves on. Hollywood's best and brightest put on brave faces, but more often than not live pain filled and broken lives. We are more taken with image than with character, outward appearance than with heart. We value brute strength over gentleness, dismiss sensitivity as weakness, we applaud revenge and despise forgiveness. Might makes right, power comes through the barrel of a gun. We have thrown commitment out of the window, changing our vows from 'as long as we both shall live' to 'as long as we both shall love'. We are uninvolved and shallow and self serving and lonely and empty. Many live “lives of quiet desperation”.

The phrase “like lambs to the slaughter” is a phrase that comes to mind, when I think about this generation in which we live. As a society, we have thrown out faithfulness, goodness, integrity, endurance, steadfastness, wholesomeness, nobility, righteousness, gentleness and self control. Our sit coms encourage us to selfishness, presenting it as normal. “Look after number one, who else will?” We call those who would council restraint, old fashioned outmoded and out of date. But even the secular literature warns us of the consequences of our poor choices. These choices seem to promise freedom happiness, and for a short time they may deliver, but only in the short term. And many of the things we choose because we think they will bring freedom and happiness, turn back on us and finish up costing a lot more than we want to pay. We have sown and continue to sow to the wind, and we wonder why we are reaping the whirlwind. But we are still not willing to hear the inconvenient truths that call us to account. Nevertheless God is not mocked we do reap the consequences of what we sow (Galatians 6:7).

“I just want to be happy”, we tell ourselves, but somehow it alludes us. It never seems to occur to us that we are looking in the wrong direction. Happiness when pursued as a goal is illusive, it comes more often than not as a result of pursuing something else, not in pursuing the gaudy baubles of our age. But actually none of this is new. Casting off restraint is as old as our Bible (Psalm 2:3), as are the cumulative effects of doing so. There is a famous quotation from Saint Agustin of old which reads “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You”. This quotation comes from his “confessions”. Saint Agustin had tasted all that the World had to offer, and like the wayward son in the Bible (Luke 15:11ff) had come to the end of himself, turned to the Lord and found hope and joy and fulfillment in his relationship with the Lord of Life.

This relationship with God is a far cry from the legalistic, rule making religion of the Pharisees, the Pharisees both of today, and of the Bible. What is offered us in Christ is not rules and regulations, it is not ritual, it is relationship, relationship with God Himself. To help us in the process of understanding who He is and how our connection with Him brings the very things that we seek Jesus, in John's Gospel, gives us a number of word pictures. He tells us, for example, that He is the bread of life (6:35), that is that He is what we need, for it is in living connection with Him that we live and breath and have our being. He is living water that truly satisfies (4:14). He is the light of the World (8:12) that not only shows us the way, but is actually not only the way, but also the truth and the life (14:6). He is the vine and we are the branches. When we abide in Him and He is us, we bear much fruit and the fruit remains and fulfills us (5:5). Our lives take on meaning and purpose. We recover hope and love and joy and peace and grace and all the fruit of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22). In Him is true freedom (8:32), and abundant life and mercy and Grace and truth and fulfillment (10:10). When we live in Him, we can make it. When we live in Him we can overcome. When we live in Him our lives have meaning. When we live in Him we can do it all (Philippians 4:13). We even get to like ourselves! When we live in Him we have joy that remains and joy that is full (15:11). This joy is so much deeper than the fleeting happiness that changes with circumstances. This joy is made of stronger stuff, it can even bring us through the fires trials of life (1 Peter 1:6-8).