What's the Deal with Happiness?

You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.

I’m feeling happy. What a strange, hypnotic, elusive, pleasant sensation it is.

2020 totally sucked. And in a lot of ways, 2021 hasn’t fared so much better. Qanon is still a thing, racism is still a thing, COVID is still a thing.

So then, what is there to be happy about? Well, there are a few rather great circumstances causing this sudden change within me, but even then, happiness isn’t so rare as we think it is. And neither is it unimportant or “second rate” in the Christian life.

I’m supposed to write about joy instead. Especially on a blog that’s Christian living-y and all about suffering well so in order to find God in the midst of it. For heaven’s sake, I’m a 4 on the Enneagram. Surely I’ve got to have some words about joy because of it’s link to suffering. I love (and hate) suffering. Heck, Paul even says “rejoice, again I say rejoice” then writes to an audience that was suffering like no tomorrow. There’s a weird kind of spiritual masochism that comes from hard knocks in the born again world.

But happiness can tell us about God too. No, not the gritting your teeth “it is well with my soul” when everything in your life is up in flames. Not the desperate, on your knees every night soaked in tears, but still relenting control to God whilst reciting Psalms kind of gladness.

Hear me now; I’m NOT saying those moments aren’t important. Truth be told, those really are the moments where Jesus encounters happen the most and mean the most. No ifs, ands, or buts; Jesus has an uncanny ability to pull you out of your own Hell in order to find Heaven by resting in Him.

But… I wonder if God gives happiness to remind us just how precious and sweet it is. I wonder if God isn’t always chomping on the bit to make sure we are super duper spiritual, and actually just desires for us to appreciate our immediate and #blessed nows. I wonder if, like a good, tender, jolly, caring Father, God actually is as thrilled about our moments of pure happiness as any holy moments of joy in spite of hardship or other spiritually “holy” moments.

Said differently, God is good. So says the Bible. And if He is good, and loves to give good gifts, is slow to anger, abounds in steadfast love, turns water into wine, feeds entire crowds of the hungry, eats meals with the most sinful of sinners, if this God, the God who is unlike any other God, who has endowed every human life with His essence, who throws the biggest, most lavish feasts at the return of even the most lost of sheep, I wonder if this God loves when we are happy. What if, I daresay, it makes Him happy?

I wonder if our relishing in our happiness, soaking it in, thanking Him for it, comprehending the preciousness of it, I wonder if that’s the deal of happiness. America is all about pursuing happiness, but what if, instead, life is all about pursuing the One who offers the best happiness?

So while contentment and joy and peace and the like are earned states stemming from a deep and honest trusting in God during the hardest knocks of life, what if happiness is a special treat God gives to all of us, at various times, just because He wants to? Because He’s like that? Because He loves us?

This I believe to be orthodox. So go be happy. And know that by doing so, you are, in fact, worshiping, honoring, and giving glory to God.