The problem of happiness. . .

It would seem that many people are not happy.  The world appears not to be enough to provide the happiness that some have sought but failed to find.  I suspect that most of us agree with this.  Happiness has certainly seemed to elude some folks and, it would seem, the number is growing more than diminishing.  In the wake of Covid, the politics of division, the pursuit of a woke world, the struggle to make a green earth, and whatever else you might name, it would seem that less than 4 out of 10 is happy. The numbers betray the reality of our complicated world and the freedom to pursue happiness has become even more of a burden than it was.  So we tend to be more pessimistic than optimistic and that has affected not only our view of the future but our satisfaction with the present.

Some churches have picked up on this and tried to remake Christianity into a religion that fosters such happiness (instead of holiness).  It has take on Protestantism by storm and seems poised to make a big difference in Rome as well.  Perhaps only Orthodoxy is immune from the presumption that God exists to make us happy and to guarantee such happiness -- come what may!  Some would insist that the religious are, on the whole, happier than those not so religious.  We might like to think so but happiness is not always so easy to define or measure.  If we believed that God existed to help us define, find, and sustain happiness, at least we would have someone to blame for our unhappiness.

C. S. Lewis hit the nail on the head when he wrote "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."  Happiness is not a commodity of which God has a storehouse and can dish out when and where He chooses.  God can only give us Himself.  We will have to decide if He is enough to satisfy us or not.  Therein lies the rub.  Faith is not a means to obtaining the hidden treasures God does not advertise but is the means to God Himself.  He is the treasure.  Only faith surmises this truth and only faith accepts it.  God resists being turned into a means Himself.  He is the end as well as the beginning.  

The pursuit of happiness is what America is supposed to be about.  The Declaration of Independence's oft-quoted "unalienable right" of all people is to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  The problem is that we are not satisfied with the pursuit and look for someone to provide the secret and then to guarantee it to us.  We have sought out happiness in material possessions, success, personal achievement, and relationships but even then the result has proven too temporary for us and failed to deliver the lasting fulfillment we have desired.  It may very well be that the framers of the Declaration knew this.  Were they guaranteeing the inalienable right to "chase happiness" — as "in hot pursuit" or were they admitting that it is not in doing what you want or seeking what you desire that you find happiness?  

C. S. Lewis warns us that seeking happiness from God just as seeking it apart from God is a futile endeavor.  God is not the agent of such happiness but its end.  Whether in the superficial trappings of the material world or our attempt to spiritualize such happiness, God is not the director of entertainment nor is He the provider of happiness outside Himself or in addition to Himself. God gives us Himself.  He is the treasure.  Either this is enough for us or it is not.  Clearly, for many Christians it is not.  In their disappointment at not obtaining a happy heart, they have traded in their faith for bitterness and sought to find happiness elsewhere.  For the Christian, the lure of God is not in what God can do but what He has done and this is its own contentment, peace, and joy.