Pretty basic.
We all want it……. happiness. Yet consistently acquiring it is a fairly rare “life skill”.
When push comes to shove, we spend our time…….all day, every day……..working on this one simple goal. We usually don’t even realize it. We get so focused on the intermediate steps that we lose track of our destination. We fail to see the forest for the trees.
Ask 100 people what they are trying to accomplish…..right now.
You will get a bunch of answers.
Get to work.
Get a job.
Clean the house.
Find my keys.
Pick up the kids.
Get dinner ready.
Pay the bills.
These are accurate. They are true. They are good goals.
But, they are not what we are really…… ultimately …….seeking.
They are intermediate steps that we work on in the hope that they will lead us to our real goal………to be happy. One of our greatest and perhaps saddest failures as human beings is that we can get so absorbed in the intermediate steps that we fail to notice that they are not taking us to our destination. We pursue our career, work 60 hours a week, buy a Lexus, move into a nice house, join the club. And we lose track of our family along the way. I know…….. because I have done this. Men are worse about this than women. Women are naturally more tuned into relationships than men. But, the women’s movement is working hard to teach women that the way to “succeed” is to be like men. Along the way women are learning to fail the same way men have.
We live in a society that tells us that self realisation should be out ultimate goal. We get called the “me generation”. We are told “if it feels good……do it.” Surprisingly, this approach is closer to the truth than we realize. We should be seeking happiness. That is what we are wired for. That is the way God built us.
Happiness is not the problem. Seeking it is not the problem. The problem is that we sit in front of our TV ……in front of our laptop…….and we listen to an endless stream of marketing geniuses and politicians telling us what we need to do to be happy. Did you ever notice that following their advice enriches THEM……..in their mistaken belief that selling you their product, their ideology, will lead THEM to happiness? There is some big league irony there.
Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we have lost our way. We have bought into Madison Avenue’s pitch…….. that the map to happiness is the accumulation of stuff……..that happiness is somehow connected to physical things.
Trust me…… accumulating stuff……will not make you happy. I have tried this too.
So, if my TV has mislead me about the path to my destination, happiness, what is the true route?
The true path to happiness predates your laptop……it even predates your TV. It is found in the New Testament. The path to happiness is love.
Love God
Love your fellow man
If you reflect on the moments of greatest joy in your life, you will quickly realize that none of them involve getting what the guy on TV told you that you need. They will be the moments when you were loved. And even more so……..they will be the moments when you loved somebody. In your heart, you know this to be true……because God wrote this truth on your heart. It is as much a part of you as your eye color.
There is a true cause and effect relationship between love and joy.
LOVE CAUSES JOY
The fact is that this knowledge about love and joy……..written on your heart…….is one of the clearest indications of the existence of God. It is one of the best “proofs” of the truth of the Bible.
You can ignore it……..you can chase stuff. But the thing about the truth is that ignoring the truth ……denying the truth…….does not change the truth. Even worse, it does not change the consequences of walking down the wrong path………a path that cannot lead you to deep abiding joy.
“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind .’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments .”
Jesus, NIV
If I speak in the tongues a of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
Paul, NIV