I’ve been praying and listening about a particular word of direction for Christ Church Cathedral and the Diocese of the South Central for 2007. A word began bubbling up in my heart about a month ago, but I kept thinking it was shallow and not particularly spiritual. Nevertheless, I couldn’t get away from it. When I finally recognized that it was direction from God it suddenly started popping up everywhere.
The word is “happiness”. It’s been seen as a shallow concept, rooted in what “happens”, but I’m speaking of it in the context of the biblical terms of “cheerfulness” and “blessedness”. It also connects to “joy”.
I’m studying it, praying it, reading about it everywhere I turn, and it will be a focus for 2007. For starters, this: there’s an erroneous idea out there that happy people are shallow people. That “the pursuit of happiness” is somehow ungodly (interesting, isn’t it, that the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is preceded by this: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” Even the Declaration of Independence is a theological document saying it is self-evident that God has created us to live a life toward happiness.
God may call us to suffer, but let us never confuse suffering with being miserable. God hasn’t called his people to misery. There can be joy, even in the midst of suffering. If a person is miserable, whatever else may be said, it is clear that such a person has something out of kilter – either situation of life or attitude of heart. Unlike suffering, misery is indicative of being out of God’s will. The language of Scripture, repeatedly (and especially in the Psalms) is the promise that God’s people, following God’s ways, will be happy. We ought not be ashamed, or think it shallow, to say that we are happy. We ought to rejoice in such a blessing from God.
