Happiness
Read John 15:16
The word is found in the
United States Declaration of Independence. Many think it is elusive. Pharrell Williams
recorded a popular song about the feeling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM).
Some think if we work hard and hoard expensive trinkets or toys we will be
happy. However, six weeks before he died, answering
a reporter’s question, "Elvis, when you first started playing music, you
said you wanted to be rich, famous and happy. Are you happy?" - the King said,
"I’m lonely as hell.”
Dear
brother and sister in Christ, there’s a difference between happiness and joy. We are looking at the subject of Joy during this
Lent season but today let’s briefly look at happiness. So what is happiness? I
would say happiness is a human emotion that depends on what happens to us.
Dr. Darrin
M. McMahon, a psychiatrist, writes in a magazine article that ancient Europeans
believed that happiness is something that we cannot control. The ancient
European word for happiness actually meant chance or luck. So the ancient
Europeans understood happiness. However, Dr. McMahon writes, these modern days,
people view happiness as something ‘out there’ that we can pursue and catch.
The truth is, while man is busy pursuing the ever-fleeing and ever-fleeting
happiness, he ignores the fact that Jesus is actually pursuing him (Psalm 23:6;
1 John 4:19). So let’s not focus on happiness, but set our sight on Jesus and
that will bring us joy (more later).
Dear God the Holy Spirit, thank you for
pointing to and bringing me to Jesus. Help me now to always trust Him, abide in
Him and wait for Him with joyful hope in my heart. Amen.
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