I just want to feel happy (in which happiness, not truths of Christ, is the main thing)
There seems to be a really intense pressure on people who identify themselves as Christians to outjoy the world (sometimes my vocabulary fails me and I just make up words). Especially in high school, I felt a great need to show everyone else how content because I felt like it would reflect well on Jesus Christ, or even legitimize his words.
I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because there’s a sense in which the age-old claim—that the highest good of man is happiness—has some legitimacy. Our experience, at least, seems to confirm it:
“What is the highest good in all matters of action? To the name, there is almost complete agreement; for uneducated and educated alike call it happiness, and make happiness identical with the good life and successful living.” -Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Maybe that’s why church-sponsored presentations that focus on the meaning of life and how the things of this world don’t satisfy seem to resonate so well. Maybe that’s why Joel Osteen is so popular. Seriously. I’ve never seen him without a smile on his face. Don’t you want to smile?
Look, I don’t think it’s wrong to want to feel happy. I definitely want to feel happy. Who doesn’t? But I fear that we approach life and Christianity in the same way we approach car shopping (not that I would know; I still take the bus all the time). We tweak and customize until it fits us. We come expecting something out of it. The main goal is to serve ourselves. Now that’s not good.
See, sometimes we’re so intent on being positive people that we’re even willing to make up our own images of God to be happy. We are seeking emotion for emotion’s sake. And I know most of us don’t think we do that. But think for a moment. We do it more often than we might think—even the theologically inclined among us.
But the problem with man-made images of God and emotion for emotion’s sake is that they aren’t grounded in anything. Have faith! Be hopeful! Get a positive attitude! Faith in what? Hopeful for what? Positive attitude because of what?
And the ironic thing about all this is that it ultimately stifles our joy. We deceive ourselves, for a time, and get drops of joy when there are oceans available. And if it’s serious enough, it ultimately keeps us from being truly saved.
Therefore, Christian, I am begging you: know God. And I mean: correctly know God. How? Get in the bible, the self-revelation of God. Get good teaching about the bible. Ask for help. Ask questions. Search for resources. Search for answers. Express doubts. Pray for help. Think hard about the claims of Jesus Christ. Study hard. Depend on grace. And learn, remember, and meditate upon what the gospel of Christ truly is.
And, besides, I think you will find that the real God—the sovereign, the king, the creator, the image of God, the God-man, the perfectly righteous, the humble servant, the wrathful, the just, the holy, the loving, the gracious, the one who paid for the sins of the redeemed at the cross—is more glorious than any image we could ever come up with.
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” -C.S. Lewis
