you should be happy

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YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY What do you want out of life? In the past, when I have been asked to speak to groups about my second book, A Way Through the Wilderness, that’s the question I used to begin with. What do you most want out of life? I quit asking that question because I always got the same bad answer. And it ticked me off. And I would have to find a very diplomatic way to let the group know what they wanted out of life was completely wrong and they were spiritual juveniles. I wouldn’t have bothered me if I was speaking to nonbelievers, but these were Christians. Their answer? Almost every stinkin’ time? “I want to be happy.” That was their answer. “I just want to have a happy life.” Just so you’ll know, I’m all for happiness. I like being happy. I like making other people happy. I want you to be happy. But it’s foolish and dangerous to make being happy your life goal.

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This is the second in our series, The Big Con: Lies The World Wants You to Believe. And today’s lie is: You should be happy. You deserve to be happy. And you should base your decisions on what will make you happy. That’s what our culture tells us. It didn’t always. For centuries, really for millennia, there was an understanding that joy was a by-product of living well. Happiness was experienced as the result of a good and virtuous life, not the goal of life that could be created or achieved independent of virtue and righteousness. Aristotle (3rd century BC) taught that living a life of virtue, serving a cause greater than yourself, being of benefit to others and your community – that would produce a sense of satisfaction and contentment that was called happiness. Jesus taught a similar ethic. You were blessed, you had a reason for happiness and contentment, when you began to evidence certain character traits. Jesus said: blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers, and the meek and those who are merciful and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

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Happiness was the result of becoming good and godly, not a prize you could grasp like the brass ring on a carnival ride. But things began to change in the western world with the Enlightenment, roughly the 18th century with the reaffirmation of Protagoras’ dictum: Man is the measure of all things. During this period Alexander Pope wrote what was a novel thought before the Enlightenment: Oh, happiness! our being’s end and aim. Our being’s end – that means happiness is the goal of our existence. Our being’s aim – that means it’s our purpose. The 18th century British economist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham took it up a notch and argued that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number – that is the measure of right and wrong.” How do we make moral decisions for ourselves and for society? On the basis of what makes people happy. Darrin McMahon, a Florida State University historian writes that as a result of this cultural shift people came to the conclusion: “They can be happy, and they should be happy.” We now expect that my marriage should make me happy, my job should make me happy, my car should make me happy, my next cup of coffee from Starbucks should make me happy. And today, the search for happiness has become an obsession.

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It has given us the laugh track, happy meals, that annoying little yellow smiley face that was created in 1963 to improve morale at an insurance company, and that still nets $50 million dollars a year in licensing fees, and according to Peter Stearns in the Harvard Business Review, child-rearing manuals with admonitions to parents such as: “the purpose of bringing up (a child) in all its phases should be to make the child as happy as possible.” An Amazon search for books on happiness will return 40,000 hits. Google “happiness” and you’ll get 622,000,000 results in .62 seconds. That’s more results than you’ll get for Donald Trump, Barack Obama, the NBA, the Dallas Cowboys and Kim Kardashian combined. Ruth Whippman, author of America the Anxious writes: People in America spend more time, emotional energy, and money in the quest for contentment than any nation on earth. The systematic packaging and selling of happiness is an industry estimated to be worth more than $10 billion, about the same size as Hollywood (the other great purveyor of happily ever after). She makes a great point. American films are notorious for having to have happy endings. Not French, German or even English films, but our movies – if they don’t end with an happily ever after, they’re not likely to be made ; and if they are, they’re not likely to be seen. Legendary director Robert Altman had a little fun with this in his movie about movies, The Player. In this clip a writer has an idea for a film that he’s pitching to a studio exec in which an innocent woman is executed for killing her husband who faked his own death. She must die in the film.

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Why? Because, the writer says, that happens. Innocent people are executed in this country. That’s reality. Here’s how the pitch concludes and then we fast forward to a final screening at the studio before it’s released into theaters. The Player Americans are obsessed with happiness. Nothing else plays very well here – not in the movies and not in our lives. Dartmouth Professor Darrin McMahon in his book “Happiness: A History” argues that happiness rather than service to God or a life of virtue has now come to be seen as thy ultimate aim of life. Darrin McMahon: We no longer live our lives according to beauty or honor or virtue. We want to live in order to be happy. Without our being aware of it, the culture redefined the purpose of life from being good to feeling good. And happiness is no longer seen to be the result of a virtuous life but as personal gratification, sensual pleasures and the avoidance of pain. This is one of the lies the world has planted in our hearts and minds. You should be happy. This is the purpose of life. And our culture is sure it can provide us with the happiness it tells us we deserve.

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Coca Cola pic Coca Cola says we can open it any time we want. Golden Corral pic Golden Corral says we can belly up to the bar and help ourselves to it. And if you have a little more money, someone else will create it for you. BMW advertisement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji1rDlt4m60 (00.00-0.15/.45-end) Of course BMW can create joy. Who doesn’t look to the Germanic peoples for a sense of fun and frivolity. Ok, back to why it ticks me off so much when I ask Christian people what they want out of life and they say “to be happy.” Because that means they’ve been conned by the world and they’ve bought its lies. They have turned to our hedonistic, materialistic culture – not the life of Jesus, not the message of the Bible, not the character of God, they have allowed our messed-up, self-obsessed culture to define the purpose of life for them. And it’s “to be happy.” You may have heard the term “cultural Christian.” In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s not a compliment. And there’s no better definition of a cultural Christian than someone who believes in Jesus and at the same time just wants to be happy and believes they’ll find happiness the same way the world does.

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We may love us some Jesus, read the Bible, pray at meals, and go to Quest. But if we want what the world wants live like the world lives, and make decisions for the same reasons the world does, we have bought the world’s lie that Jesus may save our souls, but it’s the culture that tells us the purpose of life and how to achieve it. Here are some reasons not to make happiness your life goal. Starting with the least important. 1. It Doesn’t Work. People who are obsessed with being happy usually discover just how miserable a person can be. Back to Ruth Whippman. She’s the one I quoted a moment ago that Americans spend more time and money trying to be happy than anyone else on the planet. Ruth Whippman: Despite all of the effort and money they are pumping into the endeavor, Americans consistently rank as some of the least happy people in the developed world. One recent survey even placed … the American people two places behind the citizens of Rwanda. (GDP, per capita is $1900) What’s more, according to the World Health Organization, Americans are far and away the most anxious people on the planet, with nearly one third of people in this country likely to suffer from an anxiety disorder in their lifetime.

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If you could catch happiness by chasing after it, or if you could buy it with money, or open it in a can or help yourself to it at a buffet, or attain it by reading books and attending conferences, we’d be the happiest people on earth. But it doesn’t work that way. University College London professor of psychology Adrian Furnham put it this way in a Psychology Today article. Adrian Furnham: (Happiness) is like soap in the bath. The more you try to grab it, the more cloudy the water; the more difficult it is to find.

In fact, a series of studies conducted by psychologists at UC Berkeley showed that the more intensely people value and pursue happiness as a distinct goal, the more likely they are to display symptoms of unhappiness, anxiety, loneliness, and even depression. That’s not surprising really. Because Jesus taught us that the fullness of life comes not from focusing on ourselves, but from forgetting ourselves and serving others. God created us. He understands us and what leads to a sense of well-being. And he wants what’s best for us. So, how he tells us to live is going to create a joy-filled life much more than what our fallen, self-obsessed, I-just-want-to-be-happy-and-I-want-to-be-happy-now culture tells us. And it’s what the research shows as well. What leads to happiness?

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A balanced life that includes sufficient sleep, exercise and taking a regular Sabbath. Enjoying the world that God has created – that means spending time outdoors. Living with the positive mindset of faith and gratitude for our blessings. Good relationships with friends and family. Using our time in ways that are meaningful, especially serving others. And giving generously to people in need and causes we believe in. That’s what the research says. And guess what? All of those are exactly what the Bible teaches as to how God would have us live. But what doesn’t work is striving for lasting happiness through personal gratification, physical pleasures, or material consumption. Living a life that is balanced and meaningful and virtuous – that’s what produces lasting joy. Karl Menninger, arguably the greatest psychiatrist of the 20th century, was once asked how he would advise someone who was suffering from depression. To everyone’s surprise, he didn’t say, I’d tell him to get into counseling or to get on medication. He said, “I’d tell him to leave his house, go to the other side of the tracks, find someone worse off than himself, and help that person.” Of course, there are times when counseling and meds are appropriate and necessary.

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But you get the point. So much of our unhappiness comes when we are focused on ourselves – what do we have, what are we missing, are we happy, what will make us happy, why are we so unhappy? Happiness is the result of a purposeful life; it’s not the purpose of life. Happiness is the result of a balanced life, a meaningful and a virtuous life. Why? Because God created life and that’s how he designed it. And if you think about it, it’s right that joy comes from caring about others and doing right, rather than being obsessed with self and doing whatever promises the next big buzz. 2. If you live for happiness, you will avoid the difficult and painful experiences of life that will make you wise and strong and good. Two things here. A. If your goal is to be happy right now, you will fail to benefit from your unpleasant emotions. If you can’t stand to be sad, anxious, angry, guilty or depressed, you won’t learn from being sad, anxious, angry, guilty or depressed. And these emotions have much to teach us. We refer to them as negative emotions – I don’t think we should, you’ll understand why as I continue speaking – but these emotions are often painful. And our normal reaction to pain is to try to make it go away as quickly as possible. That’s because we see pain as a problem.

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Listen up, please. Your pain is painful; but your pain is not the problem. God created us with the ability to feel pain. Why? Because pain tells us there’s something we need to address. Why do my fingers hurt? Because they’re on the burner on the stove. The problem is not my pain. The problem is that my fingers are being burned. The pain is actually a helpful messenger, telling me to move my fingers so they aren’t damaged further. And so I’ll be more careful next time. It’s the same way with sadness, anxiety, anger and guilt. When I feel those things, they’re telling me that there’s something I need to address. If I’m feeling guilty, the immediate goal is not to make the feelings of guilt go away. The goal is to figure out what do I need to do to make something right so I don’t have a reason to feel guilty. Do I need to apologize? Make amends? Confess my sins to God? If I’m feeling sad, is there some loss I need to grieve? The loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of a dream? That sadness is telling me to look at what’s going on, process it honestly, and give it to God.

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If I’m anxious or depressed, those are painful to experience, but they’re the symptoms of a problem that’s going on inside me. They’re not the problem. The problem may be that I don’t have enough faith, or I’m so self-centered that I make everything about myself. Maybe the problem is I’m not getting enough rest or exercise. Or I have a chemical imbalance in my brain that needs to be addressed medically. When our goal is to be happy, we’ll try to make the symptom – the unpleasant feeling – go away without addressing the real problem beneath the feelings. And often, we’ll try to make the unpleasant feelings go away in unhealthy and dishonest ways that create an immediate feeling of happiness. Alcohol, drugs, food, pornography, an affair, workaholism, or buying something we don’t need. These may take away the feelings for a while, but usually they lead to deeper problems, and they keep us from growing emotionally and spiritually. Listen. Your pain is not your enemy, your pain is your friend. Your pain is telling you there’s a problem you need to address. It’s trying to help you and make your life better. If you are unwilling to live with and learn from the pain of unpleasant emotions because your goal is to be happy and to be happy now, your growth as a human being and as a follower of Christ will be stunted. And you will be forever shallow and small.

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This next point builds on what I just said. B. Much of our spiritual growth requires suffering. Romans 5.3-4: We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Perseverance, character, and the strength that hope can bring into our lives require suffering and testing. That means if we are going to grow spiritually, if we are going to become more like Jesus, there will have to be times when life is difficult and we bear it. We don’t run from it; we don’t self-medicate it; we endure it. You’ve heard me say this before, so I’m not going to go off on my usual rant. But God’s goal for you is not happiness but holiness. Holiness means becoming more like Jesus. That means becoming more loving, more patient, more faithful, more forgiving, and more courageous. And none of those will happen in your life unless you go through difficult times when you are hurt, challenged, sinned against, annoyed or overwhelmed. And it’s really hard to feel happy when those things are happening. What’s the purpose of marriage? To make you happy? No. It’s to make you holy.

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And I don’t know anything better for doing so, with the possible exception of raising children. To be a good husband, you have got to be patient when your wife feels a need to show you another funny cat video, or bring up something you did wrong three years ago – for the fourth time. Of course it goes the other way, too. Women have to put up with a lot. Tom Pappa on Marriage To have a good marriage, you are going to have to humble yourself and ask for forgiveness, that’s part of becoming holy. And there’s nothing that will create that need as much as sharing a life with someone who is different than you are. Especially, when you are a self-centered jerk, like I am much of the time. Most of the time. Practically all the time. I love the line where the ex-wife says, I don’t know why our marriage didn’t work. We were both in love with the same person. To be a good husband, you will have to put your wife and her needs above your own. You will have to say yes to things you don’t want to do and no to things you want to do. Why? Because you took a vow to love your wife the way Christ loved the church. And in the process of doing so, you grow and you become more like Jesus.

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Marriage is hard. Sometimes it’s going to make you happy. Sometimes it’s going to drive you crazy. But it will always provide you an opportunity to grow in holiness and to become more like Christ. And that’s true about every difficult, unhappy time you will face. The goal is not to get happy, but to become more holy. More like Jesus. Hugh Mackay is an Australian social researcher and the author of The Good Life: What Makes A life Worth Living? He uses the word wholeness, and that’s another good way of describing what the Bible means by being holy. He writes Hugh Mackay: We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position — it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much ... I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness.” Ask yourself “Is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.

It is – or better, I think, it can. Listen. Wisdom, real wisdom, requires suffering and loss and learning how to deal with them honestly and what to do with the pain they create when it doesn’t go away quickly. Without that you’re just a guy who knows some stuff. You may be a smart guy who knows some stuff, but you will never be wise.

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Character requires trials and burdens and pain. It requires learning how to keep going and how to find the strength to be faithful when you’re tired and hurting and you want to quit. Without that you may be a really nice man, a really good guy, but you will not have character. Humility, the strength to let others take the credit, the ability to admit your mistakes and ask for forgiveness, the willingness to lift others up who are ungrateful for what you do for them, without the suffering that humility demands from prideful men like you and me, we may experience great successes of our own, but we will be empty of that most beautiful trait that makes us like Jesus. Much of our spiritual growth, our becoming like Christ, requires suffering, struggle and sorrow. Don’t cheat yourself by running away from those times or giving up and walking away or finding some way to erase the pain because you’re not happy. Endure. Bear up. Be faithful. Learn. That’s how we grow. James 1.2-4: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

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Last reason for this morning not to make happiness your life’s goal. 3. You were made for more. A YouGov survey asked Americans of all ages would you rather be happy or achieve great things? 13% said they’d rather achieve something great. 81% said they’d rather be happy. And the older people got, the more they valued being happy. People 45-64, 5% said they wanted to achieve something great. 89% said they wanted to be happy. Killin me, man. Stinkin, killin me. If we took that survey in our church, and the numbers were anything like that I’d either quit the ministry or kill myself. I want you to be happy. But life is not a pleasure cruise to enjoy. It’s not a vacation to Disneyworld. It’s not a night rockin it at the Pleasure Palace. Your life is a trust. God has entrusted you with a human life. Nothing exists on this planet that is as precious or as powerful as a human life.

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There is nothing with more potential to change the course of history, relieve human misery, and make this world a better place. And God has given you one of those for 70, 80, 90 years. And you’re going to stand before him and when he asks you, “What did you do with the life I gave you?” You’re going to say, “Well, I lived to be happy and I had a pretty good time”? The world is going to hell, and your goal was to be happy? 800 million people, most of them women and children, are chronically malnourished. Close to a billion are without clean water. Human trafficking is so prevalent that 30 million people today live in slavery. That’s more than any other time in history. Christians are persecuted around the globe. Some estimates are that over 2 billion people have never heard of Jesus. And we have been given a human life, entrusted with the Gospel, and blessed with incredible financial and technological resources. And in the “what would you like to do with your life box,” the one we decided to check is “be happy”? There’s a battle going on. It’s a battle for the world God loves and Jesus died for. And if it’s going to be won, it’s going to take men who are willing to struggle and suffer and sacrifice to do great things for God.

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Ask the Greatest Generation if they were happy. Growing up during the depression, going off to war as young men, giving their lives to defend freedom and save the world from fascism. Ask them if they were happy. And they’ll tell you, they didn’t think about that. They just thought about what they needed to do. What duty and honor required of them. Not what would make them happy but what would make them proud. What made them the greatest generation? They did something hard that mattered. In your best moments you know that’s what you’re called to do and that’s who you’re called to be. Not a little boy whining that life won’t make you happy. But a man who is determined to use his life to fight a battle that will make life better for others. A battle that is hard and that matters. I do want you to have a happy life. But I pray to God that you will live a great life. It will not make your life easy. At times it will require sacrifice and suffering. But that’s how the world is redeemed and lives are changed and souls are saved. Hebrews 12.1-2: And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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Did you see the result of Jesus going to the cross and sacrificing himself for others? It says “for the joy set before him” he endured the cross. Something hard. Something that mattered. And the result is not just happiness for the moment. But joy for eternity. That’s what you were made for. And that what I want for you. Even more importantly, that’s what God wants for you.