Happiness

Faith Today - Moncton Times and Transcript - May 11 2013

All of my life has been a search for happiness.

That may sound simple enough, and true enough, that is covers most of us, right? I mean who of us does not want to be happy?

I even categorize this as the chief aim of my religious quest. I feel that Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly. And that means sucking the marrow out of life. So I have tried to always be eating in new restaurants, always travelling, always setting off on new adventures in search of happiness.

I pretty much have felt that this was the meaning of life.

Then someone wisely said to me, in one of those glum moments when I was feeling sorry for myself, that I am never going to find it.

“What?” I screamed, “of course I will, how dare you tell me I cannot be happy!” to which the reply came, but when these things make you happy, what happens when they stop?

When… they… stop? What happens when the lobster dinner is over, when the sun has set on the beach, when the night in the hotel is over, when the basketball game ends? Do you feel happy? And the answer, for me, honestly, is that I do not. I was happy while doing it, but that feeling is tied to the activity, to the action, to the moment.

Maybe you all know this. I feel like I should have got it long before I did. But the point of life is abundance; it is fulfillment; it is joy… which is not the same as happiness.

In the very first pages of the Bible we are reading about the concept of joy. God makes all these things, so the story goes, and each creation brings a sense of joy, of completeness. At the end of the day, with the feet up on the coffee table, God says, “This is good!”

So much so that morning brings a chance to do it all again!

When Jesus was talking about Abundant Life, I now understand that he was not talking about hang gliding and beach vacations. He was talking about a sense of joy and fulfillment that lasts. One of the main reasons I go to church is that I have always thought the teachings of religion, the ideas Jesus had on living, would make me happy. Turns out I was right, but wrong in so many ways.

So here is the secret… what we need to do is to turn it around, things do not bring happiness, we need to find happiness in things.

Just do not tell the advertising people this. There are billions of dollars being spent to convince you that happiness is found in a new car, a new rug, a new flavour of chocolate bar…

Well, what if it is the other way around. If you go looking for happiness, for joy, in everything you do, you will find it. This is approach I am working on. So I go for a walk in the sunshine and look for birds singing, I sit and stare at the falling rain and listen to the music, I eat a meal and taste every bite…

In other words, I am convinced that the world, as God said, is GOOD! And I go trying to find the good in everything. It is not easy, and there are certainly days and things that happen that bring back the depression I constantly fight against.

But I am no longer looking for the one thing that will finally make me happy. I realize nothing ever will. Happiness is something I was created with, and I need first to find it within me. 

Maybe we all can.