The problem with happiness

Pharrell Williams, what have you wrought?

I remember this past summer in a variety of ways, but the most impressive of them is that moment when we closed each day of vacation Bible school by playing a video of a bunch of minions dancing and singing Williams' spirited version of the Happy son. (We can discuss what minions are at a later date.)

The little yellow dumkins sang,

"It might seem crazy what I'm about to say
Sunshine she's here, you can take a break
I'm a hot air balloon that you could go to space
With the air, like I don't care baby by the way

(hook)
Because i'm happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because i'm happy
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

And a hundred little munchkins (the cousin of said minions) would be dancing all about the sanctuary in Eunice, La., as if care had packed a bag and moved on.

By the way, that (hook) is written right there for all to see. But hooking if actually what is going on with happiness in your life this very moment. Something or someone is telling you that the hook is out there even as the line is throw into the water to entice us to be, well, happy.

The telling line there, for me in this song, is Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth, for to believe that is to be harmed, I think. Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth. Again, happiness is the truth.

Really?

Jesus comes to each of the disciples in time and says words that could help. He says, "Follow me." But then he says words that weigh heavily. Or they should. He says to each of us, "Count the cost."

He explained himself this way to the disciples (and anyone who was listening): If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters -- yes, even their own life -- such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ... Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won't he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples."

You do this, this counting, measuring, figuring, before becoming his disciples. Or you should. You look at what you have and what you will or must give up and you decide what you will give. Or you go ahead and make the costly error, deciding that this discipleship is way, way too costly. And you give up the trip in mid-stream.

Put it this way: If giving up your personal happiness is key to making a project go, a very important project to the kingdom of God go, a project that could mean life and death of all who you come in contact with, would you or would you not give it up? Would you or would you not ditch your own happiness for the happiness (the unspeakable joy) of others?

You might ask, well, would God put us in a position that we must choose between personal happiness and the happiness, the very salvation of many others? Come on, that's God we're talking about. Why would he do that?

The answer, the very answer we would be staking our whole being, our whole happiness, the happiness of our families and their families on is yes, or it must be yes. it seems to me. A thousand times yes. In other words, would we rather be happy even if our being happy means hundreds would miss out on Jesus? A thousand times no would be the answer, even if (maybe especially if) it means the loss of happiness.

Our own happiness does not, can not, mean more to us that the happiness of others. Simply can't.

When you say it like that, it's no wonder we choose unhappiness. But I certainly know how hard that choice is, and I certainly understand why others go the opposite way.

It's like, "If I am unhappy, then what's this journey all about? Isn't my happiness worth fighting for?"

When you have hundreds if not thousands of preachers telling us daily that God wouldn't give us that option, that God would do everything in his power, which is beyond measure or understanding, to make us happy, it is no wonder at all that literally millions crumble under the stress and strain. I'm unhappy, therefore this can't be of God, we tell ourselves.

Then we buckle because isn't God's making us happy his number one goal? Isn't that what we've been told? Isn't that why many are making millions of bucks and amazingly enough selling bunches of arena tickets because we all want to be happy? Isn't that the point of Christianity, this being made whole by being made happy? Isn't it?

I would actually love to write that answer is yes, yes, and yes. But I know that isn't the point, so to write that would not only be blasphemous, it would be a lie and I would be sinning myself by putting happiness above my own goals, which must be to offer Jesus, the real Jesus the Jesus of the Bible to others. In fact, when happiness becomes our goal rather than salvation, when happiness comes before holiness, when happiness gets ripped from the sinful category and instead is used as an idol that we must worship in bowed admiration, all hell breaks loose.

It is the H-word that cripples, I'm afraid. It is the worst kind of idolatry -- worshipping at the feet of the false prophet of happiness, and it really does cripple us because it makes us do whatever we can, all that we can, It is the sin that sings a lovely tune, dances an enthusiastic dance, and it makes itself so wanted that we would actually exchange darn near everything including Jesus himself for this soulless, dark, cold demon. Doesn't it stand to reason for us to say we merely want to be happy, and that we would do most anything to be happy. It rips from my heart on a daily basis this desire to smile, laugh, dance a happy jig like I was one of God's many minions. But I'm mostly not happy, and I'm certainly not dancing.

What do I have against happiness, you might ask? Look, if happiness is defined as something like, "enjoying life, having peace, being content," then my answer would be in essence, nothing. I'm, to quote a fellow Louisianan, "happy, happy, happy."

But that's not of God. God doesn't desire happiness for us so much as he desires joy.

Most people genuinely desire true happiness in their lives. The problem is that few seem to find that, and when that occurs, we flop around like a fish out of water. What happens next is genuinely the problem. If one will do most anything in searching for that happiness, one has exchanged that desire for the honest and much more meaningful search for that which is important. One must never put oneself in that sort of position.

In just a moment or two, here's the answer to the problem that affects the human condition. True happiness is the thing that gives peace and joy to us even when life is throwing all sorts of curve balls to us. True happiness is that which we can find no matter the circumstances. Anyone can find a moment of happiness. No everyone can find happiness even when the diagnosis is a bad one, or the bank statement shows what we had feared most, or when we find the problem is bigger than our capacity to solve the problem.

In those moments, only Jesus.

Paul says he had found the ability to be at peace even when things were going poorly. That's Jesus. Paul says he could be content when he had plenty and content when he had nothing. That's Jesus.

And ultimately that is happiness, this ability to smile (even laugh) at ourselves when the going had gotten rough. When the going gets rough, the poor in spirit don't get going, don't double down on the search for happiness. The tough at that point simply turn inward to find that which seems lost. Only Jesus. That's true, lasting, meaningful happiness.

That's what I seek, daily. Just Jesus. And a laugh or two.