I’ve been a bit depressed of late… no, not that cavernous sort where you contemplate the end of all things (mostly yourself) nor the catatonic sort where you sit in a dark room ignoring all things (mostly everyone else)… I’ve just had this sort of sadness in my heart, a dissatisfaction with life. Now, this happens to all of us from time to time – cycles of joy and sadness. For some, the sadness is fleeting; for others, like myself, the sadness can last a few weeks.

So, I’ve been contemplating happiness… that elusive state that everyone seems to be searching for. Being of an analytical bent, I wonder what the word truly means in our society. We all search for happiness, but have we stopped to truly analyze what that state looks like? Is happiness a constant feeling of elation or joy? Is happiness simply the absence of sadness? What about tragedy – how does that affect happiness? When people long to be happy are they only longing to be content? Is the human concept of happiness an unrealistic Utopian ideal?

Now, to be honest, I do believe “happiness” as it is usually imagined (usually by some sort of gain: new job, big raise, better house, a child, a spouse) is a fruitless pursuit in and of itself. It’s like chasing the wind. We have no real idea what it is, but somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that we’ll know it when we find it. Worse yet, we sometimes craft a “happiness that was” by using our own faulty memory of some past season and nurture a deep longing for an impossible fantasy of our own creation. So, like the proverbial pot of gold, we run after this most elusive of treasures.

Does this mean I believe we cannot be happy? On the contrary, I know that we can. I have been many times before and I know that I will be again. I just think the entire goal is ill-defined and is, therefore, unattainable. What am I saying? Before we can truly be happy, we are going to have to redefine what we think “happiness” actually is.

As a Christian, I’ve grown up learning that happiness is found by “trusting Jesus.” Which is, of course, very true… it’s also a cop-out response. If someone comes to you and asks you what they must do to be happy and you fall back to “trust in Jesus,” you need to record yourself saying that and wait for the next cycle of sadness or discontent to sweep into your life and then go play that little piece of advice back. Pretty lame, eh? Why do we give such meaningless advice and somehow hope that this reckless platitude will be just the thing this hapless soul needs to hear? Because we’re stupid and we fall back on ridiculous statements when we can’t think of anything good to say. Unless you’re willing to actually take time and listen to why this hapless soul is… well, hapless… just save us all time and air by telling the truth: “I have no clue.”

We are told to pursue God but are mistakenly set onto a path that focuses on moral obedience rather than passionate pursuit. If God is truly the source of all happiness… then how do we pursue Him so that we can experience and live passionate and fulfilled (happy) lives? For the answer, I borrow from John Piper: “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.” What does Piper mean by that? Well, you should read Desiring God to get the whole picture, but the concept starts with a singular recognition. Happiness is found in the pursuit of intimacy with God. It’s not just doing His work (though that’s definitely in there), it’s not just acknowledging His blessings (definitely part of it), nor is it just obeying His rules (definitely important) – it’s a recognition of who He is. A paradigm shift, if you will – understanding that He is the source of all joy and hope and, yes, happiness.

He is the Pearl of Great Price, the Greatest of all Treasures, the source of inexpressible joy. What does that look like in the day to day? How is that different from “trusting in Jesus?” It is an active pursuit of joy… by recognizing Jesus as the source of happiness, we pursue Him as we would the love of our lives. We are desperate in our pursuit – nothing will stand in our way. God’s genius in designing it this way is that, as we fixate on a single-minded pursuit of the joy only found in knowing Him, all the other trappings of this world… the things that dissatisfy in their discovered emptiness… these things become signposts on the journey, revealing that all glory is borrowed glory. All things that would promise happiness are but dim reflections of God and God alone.

What if we don’t see this? What if we can’t bring ourselves to actually believe, in a tangible way, that God is the source and that true happiness can only be found by drawing closer and closer to Him? There is grace for this. It could be that we have pursued our own desires and wishes for so long, our eyes have grown dim and no longer see Him for who He is. It could be that we don’t know Him at all. But thanks be to God, He is the one makes blind eyes see and reveals Himself to the darkest of hearts. This fills me with great hope that no matter how dark I feel my heart has become or how blinded by my own selfishness my eyes have become… He refuses to leave me in such a state. Oh happy day… once again.

Addendum: I started this draft on July 21st, 2009. This morning, at WorshipGod09, I had the great privilege of listening to John Piper (who I quote earlier in this post) define the paradigm shift I mention earlier. The Gospel-mindset or the Fleshly-mindset… how we view problems tells us everything about whether or not we’re truly pursuing our greatest joy (God) or if we’re really just pursuing ourselves and dressing it up as a pursuit of God.

The Fleshly-mindset defines all problems in the way they affect us personally. A problem is only a problem if it somehow interferes with our goals, dreams, ambitions, or rights. This is the point where we believe God should take action and we petition Him on our behalf to right the wrong that is being done to us. The Gospel-mindset sees problems in a wholly different way. A Gospel-minded person defines a problem as something that interferes with God’s goals or rights. Do you see the difference? It can seem subtle in practice because quite often we are working towards God’s goals and something can interfere with it. How do we respond? Are we responding with indignance because we have been stopped, or are we responding with indignance because God is not being magnified as He should?

That is a poor summary, but the message was timely and, sitting here in our hotel room in Gaithersburg… I felt it a good time to go ahead and finally publish this draft that’s been sitting here for a couple of weeks.