eWell January 27, 2010

"Happy?" by Kelly Cason

About 12 years ago, during a discussion, the priest leading us said "God is more concerned with your holiness than He is with your happiness." This wasn't said in condemnation, but rather as a lesson on what it is we should be pursuing and how we react when struggle and pain enter in our lives. Honestly, I was expecting the usual; "God works for the good" or "God's ways are not our ways." I had to stop and chew on this for a while. Had my response to God's sacrifice of His own son for my salvation been merely to pursue being happy? Is this all I really wanted? Had I somewhere replaced being godly with being happy?

I was reminded of all this when I came across a quote by C.S. Lewis. He said, "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." God doing the best for us would, apparently, involve pain on our part. Being stretched, molded and shaped certainly sounds painful. To be as God has intended I must then allow Him to lead me and shape me. It's how I react when pain enters my life. Do I stay put and endure and glorify God, trusting Him, or do I run and make the excuse that this isn't where I am supposed to be because "I'm not happy?"

How many times as a mother have I made my children do things they absolutely didn't want to do? How often have I said "because it's good for you"? I have held my 2nd daughter pinned to the bathroom counter top many nights just to brush her teeth, because brushing your teeth is good for you! (she was 2 at the time) I have literally sat on my son to hold him still just to put drops in his eyes. I would do whatever I needed to do what was best for my children. And God wants the best for me, but God doesn't use force, He won't bargain, bribe, threaten or cajole. He will wait. God will allow me to continuously make terrible mistakes and keep making the wrong turns until I learn what I need to learn. He doesn't make my disasters happen, but He will allow them. The longer I take, the more painful the process will be. This is my free will at work. My free will had a way of taking me on many detours on my road to God.

Since that discussion many years ago, I have thought of "being happy" very differently. It has become an innocuous, meek and "not much to it" kind saying: it's an easy excuse. I've had too many friends whose husbands left after years of marriage because they "weren't happy." I've known mothers who detach from their children and husbands because they "weren't happy." When is it okay for a person, especially a Christian, to hurt someone else for their own pursuit of happiness? The problem for me is no one seems to ever be able to explain just what "being happy" is supposed to feel like or look like. I have asked. What I have heard is that "it didn't turn out like they thought they would." There is a hole in their heart, as someone once told me, a God shaped hole, and nothing and no one can fill it but God.

I have felt that pain that comes at the hands of someone else when they are not happy. Physical pain brought on in wrath and the broken heart of feeling abandoned. This I struggled to understand. I don't think I will ever fully comprehend why it happened, but I can accept them. I don't blame or hold on to the anger or hurt because with God's help I can see the good that has emerged from each of these situations. If nothing else, I learned how not to be.

I don't want to merely be happy. I want to feel that overwhelming, overflowing joy that comes from God's presence in my life, the complete and perfect love He has for me, and the safety that comes from trusting in His protection over me no matter the circumstance. I want God to delight in me, not just be happy with me.