God wants us to be happy.
As the psalmist says,
"in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
And again,
"be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous; and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!"
He
provides for us here on earth:
"You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance. They drop on the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered with grain; they shout for joy, they also sing."
And He has given us incredible spiritual blessings - His grace, His love, forgiveness of sins, knowledge of Himself, the promise of glory,
and so on:
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."
But the happiness He has intended for us, and which He desires and delights to give us, is not the same happiness that we want for ourselves or that our culture values - the hedonistic self-centered happiness of pursuing and obtaining one's own wishes in this world, or the proud self-righteous happiness of succeeding or making a difference in this life by one's own merit. To paraphrase Lewis (since I don't have the book at hand, nor would I be able to find the passage quickly if I did), God has intended us for infinite and eternal happiness, centered in Himself - the strong and beautiful spring of all true happiness and joy - and if we so desire we can begin to prepare ourselves for that happiness right now, by learning to trust and know God more. If we have to sacrifice some of our more readily obtained and plainly visible happinesses along the way, if we must suffer and be miserable for times in this life, I believe it is worth it, if those sacrifices and sufferings are God's tools for making us into being capable of truly knowing Him and delighting in the great happinesses and indescribable pleasures He has treasured up for us in Him.
Do you ever sleep?
ReplyDeleteI love you sweetie, and as a parent I hope you never have to suffer too miserably. :-)
Paul was gone last night for drill, so I didn't have anyone to regulate my sleep schedule and I just stayed up until I crashed :) When he's home I get more sleep because he notices I'm starting to get tired or that it's about the time when I normally need to go to sleep, and then subtly hints that it's time to go to bed.
DeleteSometimes I think that it can be harder to watch someone we love suffer than to suffer ourselves! But in reading the Bible it seems to stand out very clearly to me that suffering is an integral part of life, because of sin, and that like all other parts of sinful life God has sort of co-opted it for His own purposes and uses it for our growth and sanctification - so while it isn't something to be sought out, it isn't necessarily an evil to be avoided at all costs.