Thoughts on Happiness

Fifteen years ago today the hospital doctors and nurses took me aside and said there was nothing more they could do for Jan.  Her body was shutting down; time to transfer her to hospice care.  Seven days later, Feb. 8, she received her promotion to heaven, and we grieved her absence.  Still do.  Jan would have loved watching her kids and grandkids grow.  By the way, here are a couple more pictures from our family Christmas last December.

It’s easy for us to think of the happiness that is lost when a loved one departs.  We imagine what it would be like if that mother, or that husband, or that friend was still with us.  We think of misfortune in the same way.  Oh, what happiness we could have had if I still had that job, or if I hadn’t gotten sick, or if I hadn’t lost that money, or if that disaster hadn’t happened.  It seems our hope for happiness cannot carry us beyond what we can see.

But with the eyes of faith we can begin envisioning a much superior happiness that exists in the home of the One who invented happiness.  If happiness had a recipe, it’s ingredients would be compassion, mercy, love, forgiveness, gentleness, kindness, joy, and all the other qualities that make up God’s glory.  None of these qualities exists naturally in man.  Sin won’t allow it.  Man can imitate these qualities and pretend they’re his.  But the one who truly walks in the Spirit knows the depth of our own wretchedness and the dearth of anything good within our own hearts. 

God’s eternal plan was to create and then rescue a people of His own choosing, living in the backdrop of a fallen world, who would then be empowered by His Spirit to reflect and enjoy His glory now and forever.  Evil and sorrow were necessary to see and experience this glory.  For example, peace would never be precious to us without the experience of adversity.  We so often question God’s goodness when He allows bad things to happen.  But God must know something about pure happiness (a happiness He is excited to share) that makes evil and suffering worth happening.  Whatever snippets of happiness we stumble upon in this life, always tempered by the evil that surrounds it, is but a tiny taste of the bountiful feast of pure joy that awaits us in the land where the attributes of God’s glory will be forever treasured by us who have been its unworthy recipients. 

Once a saved soul enters heaven, with all its unstained beauty and stunning splendor, and the selfish desires of the flesh – lust, greed, and pride, are forever washed away, he/she will be so overwhelmed with unblemished happiness that there will not be the slightest desire to return to this world where lasting happiness is but an elusive dream.  “It is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).  Genuine happiness is our blood-bought inheritance.  Trust God for it.  Praise Him for it.  Don’t wish for here what can only be had there.