Rethink Happiness

               
"I deserve to be happy"

          Our culture has placed too much emphasis on happiness as a birthright like something which everyone deserves. In all probability, young men and women explore the fallen world in finding fulfillment out of their wrong perception of what real happiness is. The widespread dogma that God intended humans to be as always happy is blinding and voiding us through believing that there is something missing when we are not happy, something is wrong.
                  Thus, it makes us work hard to bring to pass that delusion.
                  I can't help but imagine the undertakings where a wife chooses to divorce her abusive husband because she would have thought a better life separated to him. Where a bunch of students indulging in fraternities traded for future chances and perhaps for bearing certain protection. Where a dedicated Christian  pleases to turn away from God for the fitting satisfaction of society where he lives. Where a teenage girl, in her state of unwanted pregnancy, decides to abandon the fetus in her womb for the sake of keeping up her dignity which she all bound to lose. All those pictures that loomed with a success-but-a-failure scenes are simply because of reality that everyone wants to be happy. People chase fulfillment in all possible means even doing things they know are wrong. And if you would ask them why they do what they are doing, someone might assert, "I deserve to be happy, that's it," or "I think now is the right time for me to go for my own happiness." Worth the question I just thought. But is that really the way it is? Do we really deserve happiness and live our lives pursuing it? Or, does God planned it necessarily to express our completeness?

"Happiness is what?"

              The worlds perception of happiness is a chronic malady that imbeciles us towards God's view of it. It is so apparent that many people even Christians have been convinced that attaining power, wealth, relationships and acquiring things associated with happiness was God ultimate plan. And to think of that, it became the measurement of how you go well in life and God's favor on you, tsk. Well, let me assert that God has nothing to do with happiness. It even does not scale His favor towards anybody and you. Though, I could say that God does wants us to be happy, but making your happiness the core pursuit of life absolutely does not, why? Let me state it here clearly;
               
                God does not want us to pursue happiness because...
                 Happiness is temporary. The famous aphorism that says, "the only permanent thing on earth is change," is definitely factual. Nothing lasts forever. You may become happy for some time but not always. And God wants us to have more than temporary which happiness cannot go through.
                  Happiness is conditional. It is so dependent in situation, circumstances and environment. It is like you are about to hang your newly washed clothes but suddenly the sky turns gray and heavy rain pours out then you become unhappy and mad. Elsewhere inverting that situation, if the sun smile and get participated in freeing your clothes from moisture then you will become happy indeed. You may exhort me, "What a shallow analogy!" Yep, but that's what happiness in reality. In his authored book "Joyfully Single" Dr. Harold Sala relates how conditional most people view happiness this way, he contends "we make everything depends on the conditional 'if': 'if this would happen' or 'if I could have (whatever) I'd be happy.'" I think you can go on that very well. Some of us already experienced whipping "if I had," or "if only this would happen" syndrome which is an undeniable omen of how conditional happiness is.
                   Happiness is material. How many times have you wish to change your cellphone? Buy branded apparels and designer's perfume? How about longing for a house and lot with sports car? Those are just specific examples of stuff we hope for in satisfying our desire for happiness. Things which surely be deteriorated by moths and termites. Was that the kind of happiness God  wants for us? Happiness that lies in thermodynamics and will someday degrades like battery and turn obsolete? Surely no.
                     Happiness is the world's appendage for joy. God wants us more than happiness and that is joy. Let me assert this statement again, "happiness is the world's appendage for joy." The world blindfolds us to the real entity of fulfillment that joy gives.Just like how the Easter eggs and bunnies obscure the resurrection or Santa Claus replaces baby Jesus in the manger during Christmas, likewise, happiness substitutes joy. Happiness is the world's biggest deception. That is the reason why joy must be our prior precedence in life. Because unlike happiness, joy abides and remains even matters are worst and good things fade away. It is even not material but rather spiritual. It is unconditional, you can still be joyful even you are not happy. And most especially joy comes from within, because it springs from the heart.

Rethink happiness
                    
                 Knowing that God never wants us to pursue happiness does mean He also never wants us to be happy?
                  There was a story I have read about monks who isolated themselves to live with people. They dress plainly, talk less, eat only grass and wheat and washed themselves with mud and filth. They preferred to live their life wretched, believing that the more miserable they are, the more happier God is. But, is that the way God wants us to be? To live miserable and lonely life just to please Him? I don't think so.

                  Rethinking happiness, I pondered with the lives of those servants of God whose lives were being chronicled in the Bible. There was Daniel who became captive of Babylon empire and dumped to the lion's den but still survive while trusting God. There was Joseph who was being bullied by his brothers, sold to Egyptians, became servant and subsequently prisoner but surpassed it all while trusting God. Take Paul for instance who suffered so much in life that he wrote to the Corinthians what's in his heart, " I am pressed but not crushed, persecuted not abandoned, stuck down but not destroyed," but still able to say " We do not lose heart." Do they live a happy life? No. In fact, if happiness is their pursuit, would you think they will allow those things to happen? Daniel could have been enjoyed living in luxury being the apple of the eye of the Babylon king. Joseph could do vengeance to his brothers offensive treaty to him. Paul could write inspirational books and sell it to buy a house and guards who would protect him. And so Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, St. Augustine and all those so-called martyrs that transformed human history. These people never live a happy life but they never lose heart because the joy they had with God gives them all the contentment and peace of saying "Your will be done." It is joy that God wants for you and so for me and others. Joy necessitates you to do the right thing even your life is at stake doing it. Joy transcends occurrences in a larger view to where you can decipher the purpose of it. Joy provides you all the peace and fulfillment of heeding the fact that we are all about as happy as we decide to be. Joy will make you say, "Your will be done," in every aspects of your life. So let me point it this: Pursuing happiness is not the goal of our lives but rather joy. Because joy will provides you all the strength and confidence you need to holiness and godliness. Now, rethink happiness and be filled with joy.

The joy of Jesus

               Jesus is the best example of a life in pursuance  of joy. He suffered in pain and torture bringing to pass the salvation of humanities. And it is through by joy that He died and rose again, ascended in heaven and will someday comeback again to take those who by the joy becomes victorious in a race He laid upon.