How to be happy in an unhappy world...
Life is unfair.
In a world filled with so much unhappiness, how can we find happiness? TV news items tell us of human miseries that multiply almost hourly. Measureless disasters and terrible catastrophes, involving millions, are brought into our living rooms as we try to relax and escape the worries of a hard day. And personal troubles are never far away; mounting debts, financial worries, bills arriving daily while family problems increase. And it seems that friends are too busy; after all they have their cares and worries too. Sometimes it seems that we are all alone. Can we really be happy?
As someone has put it; “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” We spend so much of our time, and our money and our energy and resources in this pursuit of happiness and yet it either remains elusive or it disheartens. As Malcolm Muggeridge, the English journalist and philosopher, wrote, “Happiness is like a young deer, fleet and beautiful. Hunt him, and he becomes a poor frantic quarry; after the kill, a piece of stinking flesh.” Is life condemning us to a disappointing, futile chase?
“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The Bible is in total agreement! The pursuit of happiness is “chasing after the wind” (verses 14 & 17).
Yet the same wise King Solomon who wrote 3000 years ago of the meaninglessness of life also wrote, “I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live” (Ecclesiastes 3:12). St Augustine wrote “Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure. Where your treasure is, there is your heart. Where your heart is, there is your happiness.”
"Happiness doesn’t depend on the actual number of blessings we manage to scratch from life, but on our attitude toward them.” These words come from the pen of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a man who suffered almost 40 years of persecution, isolation and oppression as a prisoner of conscience in the Soviet Union. He recognized the words of Jesus when He had said, “A man’s life is not measured by the many things he owns” (Luke:12:15).
Happiness cannot be secured by wealth nor can it be protected by possessions. Happiness cannot be held onto by amassing more and more. Because that new car we wanted so much is already last year’s model. That big house we couldn’t live without is draining every penny and hour. Three foreign holidays are not enough time to get away from the pressures and worries of life. By contrast when the apostle Paul was sitting in a prison cell awaiting trial for being a servant of Jesus, he wrote, “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). God does not condemn us for wanting nice things for ourselves and our children, but He is trying to teach us that we need to place everything in its right perspective.
Solomon, Jesus, Paul, Augustine, and Solzhenitsyn all saw the same quality necessary for true and lasting happiness. But in our headlong pursuit, have we failed to look up and recognize the meaning of happiness? That same Solomon who wrote about happiness being man’s highest ideal, in the same portion of Scripture said God “has planted eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We will never be happy with things, because they are temporal and will pass. But true happiness comes from serving God and serving others. Solomon, in summing up all that he had to say on life and happiness stated; “Here is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is the duty of every person” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). More important than happiness? Yes, because as Jesus said, “a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God” (Luke 12:21).
Maybe a better question than “Can I be happy?” might be “How can I be happy?” Billions of people have lived on this earth and billions are living on it now. But if the Bible makes eminently clear one thing, it is that God is personal, and He approaches us in just that way – as persons. He sees the masses and is concerned for them, but He sees each one of us individually and is concerned for each one of us individually. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.” (John 3:16-17). True happiness will only ever come when we understand that we are loved deeply, personally, divinely, and that we need to love God in return.
One interesting little piece of information about the character and mindset of Jesus Christ is revealed in what is perhaps the greatest speech in history – His Sermon on the Mount. This manifesto of the kingdom of God begins with the very ideal we have been seeking. Most English versions of the Bible will tell us that Jesus says “blessed” are these people, but maybe a more accurate translation of what Jesus wanted to convey to us is “Happy.” Read it for yourself and see the wisdom of Jesus words in Matthew 5:2-11. How can I be happy? By being poor in spirit, gentle and merciful, by hungering and thirsting for righteousness, by being pure in heart and a peacemaker. Then we can claim to love God and be truly happy.
