Community Challenge: Happiness?
Isn’t it odd that many times in our life happiness is the end goal? In this “True[ish]” series we have seen how that is not the truth. There is something so much bigger than happiness that God has for us. Here is a challenge to look at our circumstances through the lense of Christ desires (as our end goal) instead of happiness. Jump in the conversation below!
A great Jewish teacher said that the sense of contact with the ultimate dawns upon most people when their self-reliance is swept away by misery.
Judaism & Christianity attempts to instill in us the sense of an everyday awareness. It leads us to regard injustice as a metaphysical calamity, to sense the divine significance of human happiness, to keep slightly above the twilight of the self, enabling us to sense the eternal within the temporal.
You know, there is no end to our experience of the spiritual grandeur, of the divine earnestness of human life. Our happiness may be crushed, but we are upheld by the faith that comes from our core belief.
Great thoughts, Brandon. Your setting in this clip really coincides with my experience that our lives are truly seasonal – some more uncomfortable and less fruitful than others. But springtime always comes.
I often ask God to break my heart for what breaks His. No one with a broken heart is "happy". However, when my heart is broken for the hurting and the lost, I experience truth and receive reinforcment of my purpose here on Earth. That confirmation of purpose in Jesus Christ reminds me that He came to bring me life more abundant….and that brings me pure joy.
There is a big difference between pure joy and general happiness.
Yeah Brandon – this is such a REAL challenge. I think we are told in so many ways that our happiness is the most important thing. Been reading Philippians the last little while, and Paul just has such a different view than I do – he saw everything as an opportunity to develop his relationship with God and to invite others into it. Imagine being happy that you were in prison because you got to witness to the guards!! Crazy man, just crazy.