We often let this lie infiltrate our thinking and our philosophy. It always leads to frustration and can eat away at our faith. What is this insidious lie? “God wants us to be happy.” No! he wants much more than that for us. Happy is fleeting, shallow, and conditional. These are all things that God is not. God has something much richer, deeper and more fulfilling and lasting: Joy!
God wants us to rejoice whether we are happy or not (phil4:4). And he places desires in our heart to motivate us toward growth and maturity (psa37:4).
What is so bad about this lie?
Well, simply put, if we believe this lie then we will assume God’s will should lead to happiness or we will associate happiness with being in God’s will. Either way we will then naturally feel that if we are not happy, must not be in God’s will. This is simply not true. God often leads us into challenging situations to mature us or for something he is doing in someone else’s life. No one will be happy to sit with a friend while their wife dies of cancer but sitting there and holding a hand surely is often where God wants us. Believing this lie can also feed doubt into your faith because staying constantly happy is impossible. Staying in God’s will with joy is not only possible but the very life God has for us.
Flakey
Anyone know some “flakey christians”? Anyone been flakey? (I have.) They commit to things then 2 or 3 weeks later they bail out. They make promises to do something then call to say they should not have promised, they just don’t feel right about it? This is typical of people trying to follow a feeling and not biblical principles. This comes from attributing difficulty with God communicating his displeasure. God does not communicate his will by making something hard. If He doesn’t want you to do it, then he will make it impossible! If you commit to something then realize that it was a mistake then the proper thing to do is pray “Forgive me for committing to this please help me see this through since I gave my word and don’t want anything to reflect poorly on you Lord. But in the future I will be more careful and seek your will as to what I commit to.” Then do what you have committed to do as unto the Lord with rejoicing. BOOM! (as a friend of mine is fond of saying.) Don’t be flakey. God loves to grow us by getting us in over our heads so that we have to depend upon him to accomplish things. God is trying to make us Holy… not happy.
But
When you are in God’s will, depending on him and experiencing the abundant life. When you can feel him moving in your life and using you to produce fruit and accomplish his purposes. The resulting emotion is often pure happiness. The kind that warms and nourishes and gives peace. It is not the goal, it is just often a blessing when the goal is obtained.
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