Happiness

Don't worry be happy; a phrase made popular by Bobby McFerrin's hit song released in the 80s. It seems that this simple phrase encompasses one of  the things that we are most obsessed with. Is it not the thing that we are all searching for, that motivates our actions and our thoughts? When you don't have it all you can do is want it and when you do have it all you can do is pray you don't loose it. But when did happiness become the ideal and the goal? It seems that there came a point when the desire for happiness surpassed our desire for truth and thus became an idol. I think that just like anything else happiness can be an idol and a dangerous one at that. It's like this mysterious ether that travels around touching some people and missing others. The reason why it's so dangerous is because there is no definite source. It's random and untraceable. Things that once made you happy can stop bringing you happiness. One of my favorite TV shows said it well:

"People get lost when then think of happiness. We're always thinking that someday we'll be happy; that we'll get that car or that job or that person in our lives who will fix everything. But happiness is a mood. And it's a condition not a destination. It's like being tired or hungry, it's not permanent it comes and goes and that's okay. If people thought of it that way they would find happiness more often."

I just love the part where he says it's a condition not a destination. The moment that we make happiness what we are working toward is the moment that we are let down. And that's why we have to have an outside source that is constant and 100% intentional. This reminds me of my 11th grade pre-calculus class with Mrs. Welk. Being that she taught in a Christian school Mrs.Welk liked to give Biblical integration for the math that we were learning. Although some chapters were difficult to integrate others had very interesting applications to our lives as students and as believers. She once described a sine curve as being our feelings and the x-axis as being the truth that God provides for our lives. Our feelings are always going to fluctuate up and down no matter what we do. We let our happiness be based on the situations that we experience in life and not definite truth. When we make the choice to be governed by the consistency and ultimate truth of God it gives us the ability to be freed from the never ending and unsatisfying search for happiness.

There is always going to be stuff in my life that causes my feelings to fluctuate, especially in this new environment but I can't be controlled by them. I have to fix my heart on the the true promises that the Lord has for me.