I'd Be Happier If . . .

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Colossians 3:1-14

Last week we started a conversation about happiness.  If the questions we’re raising about the connections between your spiritual life and your happiness are interesting to you, you might want to think about our Fall Retreat.  That retreat will focus on these questions in a personal way.

I want to get us started this week by returning to a few quotations from Ellen Charry’s book, God and the Art of Happiness. 

“Possessing the triune God is happiness itself.”

“Happiness is knowing, loving, and enjoying God securely.”

“Happiness characterizes God-lovers, and loving well is the key to happiness. . . . Therefore, ultimate happiness is becoming wiser and better by loving God.”

One of the ways sin manifests itself in our lives is that we often pursue hair-brained ideas about what will really make us happy.  We do things that don’t make us happy.  And we leave off doing the simple things would actually lead to a deeply satisfying life.

 

And the practice I suggested for us last week was to spend a little honest time with our calendars.  When we do that, the question arises, “Am I on course to becoming happy?  Am I in the habit of doing things that are making me a better, wiser, happier person?” 

So what did you find out?  If you’re like me, your actual schedule is packed with things that aren’t making you happy.  Now some of those obligations we can’t get rid of – the laundry, washing dishes, running the kids here and there, showing up for work, keeping your doctor appointments.  But most of us spend a good bit of time on things that don’t contribute to our happiness (watching TV might be one of those things). 

Moreover, there are things you really care about – learning to play the piano, or reading more, or painting, or gardening, becoming an excellent cook or a passionate volunteer or developing friendships – and yet on a day to day basis you’re not pursuing these life-giving activities.

Here are the survey results I promised you from last week:

My happiest time is . . .

            Behind me  - 18%

            Right now – 44%

            In the future – 28%

I am . . .

            Less happy than others – 5%

            More happy than others – 34%

            About as happy as others – 61%

On a scale of 1 to 7, how happy are you . . .

with marriage/singleness                            6.2

with your congregation/spiritual life         6.0

with the community where you live           5.7

with friendships                                            5.6

with physical health/body image               4.9

with affection/intimacy/sexuality              4.7      

with family life                                              4.6

with work                                                       3.8

On a scale of 1 to 7, how happy are you right now?

           

1, 2 or 3          – 5%

            4 or 5              - 28%

            6 or 7              - 67%

How many days a week are you happy?

           

1, 2, or 3         – 9%

            4 or 5              - 29%

            6 or 7              - 62%

Helping people figure out how to be increase their happiness is big business right now in our culture.  We have a flood of self-help books on happiness like the book by Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project.  Rubin offers a number of practical tips on how to increase your happiness – things like going to bed on time, getting plenty of exercise, de-cluttering your house and office.

Time Magazine ran a cover story on “The Pursuit of Happiness” this week.  The Survey included these helpful questions:

If you had to choose, which makes you happier — working toward a goal, or finally achieving a goal?

Working toward a goal

Achieving a goal

Don't know

Do you think you're pretty much born with your basic level of happiness or is it possible for people to make themselves happier during their lives?

Born with a basic level of happiness

Possible to make themselves happier

Don't know

This is kind of a tricky one – both are true.  Because of research, we now know that about 50% of happiness is hereditary.  About 20% of happiness depends on what happens to you.  And about 30% of it you control. 

So there ARE reasons to work at happiness since some of it is in our control; yet we ought to be modest about happiness as a goal – about 70% of our happiness is determined by the cards we’ve been dealt.

And it doesn’t help very much to compare our happiness levels to others around us.  Every single person is a unique mix of biological factors and life experience.

Every single one of us wants happiness.  We want the fullest life we can have.  We want to live the best life possible.  But we live most days with a little clip running unconsciously in our heads that says, “I’d be happier if . . . “  And we have a thousand different ways to finish that sentence.

One of the basic temptations of life is to out-source our happiness, to return to the infantile stage when our parents provided everything for us.  Freud helped us see this.  By placing unhealthy expectations on others for our happiness, we try to avoid the difficult truth that no one is responsible for our own well-being like we are. 

So we’re in a bit of a conundrum.  We need help.  What do we find when we turn to the wisdom of Scripture?

What we hear in Deuteronomy 30 is that life and blessing are offered to us by God in the simple clarity of the command to love and obey God.

“For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess” (Deut. 30:16).

Moses refers to this blessing as “life” and “prosperity.”  It is the shalom (peace) and flourishing that characterizes life lived God’s way.  It is a certain kind of happiness.

And here’s the wonderful news.  This blessed life isn’t difficult to find.  It doesn’t require a grand search.  You don’t have to scale the mountain heights to find it.  You don’t have to criss-cross the oceans to discover it.  “No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it” (Deut. 30:14).

This is what you won’t find in self-help books.  Scripture teaches us that there’s a link between our obedience to God’s commands to live life God’s way and our happiness.  Charry puts it this way:

“Theologically put, obeying divine commands enables us to experience the reverent life as pleasing and rewarding.  We do better by practicing than by being talked into it” (Charry, 252).

What we heard from Colossians makes it very clear that God has done something for us that we cannot do for ourselves.  It began, “You have been raised with Christ.”  God has done this for us by God’s amazing grace.  It is a radical gift, for which we give thanks.

But Colossians is also clear that this grace doesn’t make us passive.  It energizes us.  It calls us to an active participation in what God is doing.  Yes, you’ve been raised with Christ.  So now get busy using your salvation by doing the things that will help you become a better and wiser lover of God.

Set your hearts and minds on things above – on the good news of what God has done for you.  “Put to death” those patterns of life that harm you and others around you.  “Rid yourself” of those sinful and destructive ways of life that used to be common before God found you and made a difference in your life.

Raise your heads and live with hope because of what God is doing in you.  There is a “new self” – a new you – coming to birth right in the middle of who you already are.  And this new you is “being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (vs. 10).  This is exciting if you can see it.  What’s happening is that Christ is being formed in us by the work of the Holy Spirit.  “Christ is all and in all” (v. 11).

Charry puts it this way:

“Realizing that one is called to salvation may happen in a startling moment, but becoming spiritually well is a journey . . . Happiness is the intensification of spiritual maturity in which happiness expands and deepens as people become spiritually stronger and better able to contribute to their own and the world’s well-being” (Charry, 254-255).

Charry’s view is that happiness is a gentle light that grows and deepens over time.  She’s not talking about mere excitement.  She’s talking about the pleasure we can take in our lives when we’re on the journey towards spiritual wellness.

I want to return to one more survey question we asked last week:

What is the number one obstacle to your happiness?

Males:

My mom and dad are stopping me from doing things that make me happy

My parents won’t buy me a Jeep

Several mentioned health issues.

Several mentioned “time” – not enough for family, relationships, projects, etc.

A few people mentioned either “work” or “income”

Interestingly, quite a few left it blank or wrote, “I don’t know”

Females:

The responses included:

            A struggling spiritual life

            Financial insecurity

            Desire for a warmer climate

            Stress

            Negative people

            Parenting

            Fear of rejection

            Not enough time to travel

            Waiting to retire

            Establishing new routines after a move

            Searching for places to use my gifts

            Job challenges

At least two people mentioned:

            Living far from family members

            Living in a small town

            Needing to care for a spouse with health issues

            Neighbors

Several mentioned being too busy, too many demands from work and family.

Several mentioned the aging process.

Several mentioned the struggles of their grown children with money, job, family issues, or needing to help with grandchildren.

Several mentioned “health” or “weight” issues

Four mentioned being single, living alone, or not meeting someone special to share life with.

Four mentioned matters related to marriage – forgiveness, communication, not enough time, etc.

Most frequent was a blank, no answer.

But here’s what interested me most.

Nine said, “I’m the problem.  My attitude is the biggest obstacle to happiness.  My pessimism, jealousy, pride, and lack of focus are the problem.” (no males said this)

Now all the things we listed are real challenges.  They make our lives difficult.  They make it hard to be happy.  But those who said, “I’m the main problem” are the closest to the truth.  So this is the hard thing for all of us to hear today. 

The main reason I’m not happier than I am . . . is me.  My attitude, my outlook, my pessimism, my refusal to move forward, my negativity, my fixation on life’s challenges.  And yet God continues to invite us forward into newness, into a life full of blessings.  God has already loved us by including us in Christ’s dying and rising.  And now God asks us to take off our old destructive patterns of life and begin to wear some new clothes.

Terrible things may have happened to us.  Parents may have neglected or abused us.  Spouses and friends may have betrayed us.  Natural disasters, loss, and grief might have come our way.  It’s still hard to hear but true: only you can decide how to respond to what has come your way.  Only you can hear and respond to God’s invitation to a life that’s getting better and wiser.

Here’s the recommended practice for the week:

At the end of each day, name three things you’re grateful for.  Every day.  No matter what.  Say it out loud to a family member.  Say it in a prayer.  Write it in a journal or say it on Facebook.  Three good things about the day.  There’s a psychological trick to this.  You’re actually training your neural pathways to focus on the positive.  And you get better at this.  It becomes more natural.  But you will even need to practice naming three good things on terrible days when all hell seems to break loose.

But there is also some profound spiritual truth here.  By naming three good things every day, you are learning to find God in each day, and to give thanks to God even in difficult times.  You are learning to become a God-lover, a person growing wiser and better in the journey of faith.