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“How much stuff do you need to be happy?
“I don’t know. How much stuff is there?
(From VeggieTales – Madame Blueberry)
I have been reading Timothy Keller’s new book, Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical. Here are some quotes from him and others about happiness.
“Studies find a very weak correlation between wealth and contentment, and the more prosperous a society grows the more common is depression. The things that human beings think will bring fulfillment and contentment don’t. What should we do then, to be happy?”
‘Wealth, power, and security – the external goods of the world – can lead only to a momentary satisfaction, which fades away, leaving you more empty than if you had never tasted the joy.”
“Philosopher Alain de Botton says that loving relationships are fundamental to happiness.”
“People find more pleasure in working toward a goal than they experience when they actually attain it.” (Haidt – Progress Principle)
“The functional cause of our discontent is that our loves are out of order.”
“Augustine believed all sin was ultimately a lack of love.”
“The unhappiness and disorder of our lives are caused by the disorder of our loves.”
“The ultimate disordered love, however, and the ultimate source of our discontent, is failure to love the first thing first, the failure to love God supremely. In his Confessions, Augustine prays to God: ‘For there is a joy that is not given to those who do not love you for your own sake ….This is happiness and there is no other. Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy. Nevertheless their will remains drawn towards some image of the true joy.’ ”
“We were created to know this joy by loving and glorifying God preeminently.”
“You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Augustine
“If you love anything more than God, you harm the object of your love, you harm yourself, you harm the world around you, and you end up deeply dissatisfied and discontent.”
“Of course, not even the strongest believers love God perfectly, nor does anyone get close to doing so Yet to the degree you move toward loving him supremely, things begin to fall into order, into their proper places in your life.”
“What matters most for pleasure is not the simple impact on our senses but what it means in relationship to other persons who matter to us.” Paul Bloom – How Pleasure Works
“Attachment to God amplifies and deepens enjoyment of the world.” It does not diminish it. Miroslav Volf
“Don’t love anything less; instead learn to love God more, and you will love other things with far more satisfaction.”
You are a forgiving God,
gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and
abounding in LOVE.
Nehemiah 9:17
O LORD God, Who lives in eternity,
The heavens declare thy glory,
The earth thy riches,
The universe is thy temple:
Thy presence fills immensity,
Yet thou hast of thy pleasure created life,
and communicated happiness:
Thou hast made me what I am,
and given me what I have:
In thee I live and move and have my being.
(A Puritan’s prayer from the book The Valley of Vision)
What did Jesus have in mind exactly when he said “deny yourself and take up your cross.”. Especially the deny yourself part. He said that if you try to save your life you lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you gain it. My big idea lately, my take away with those words, is that in one sense Jesus was talking about instant gratification vs. delayed gratification. I think God loves us and wants us to be happy, so if we deny ourselves the instant gratification that most sin tempts us with, (Moses in Pharaoh’s palace for example) then we will be happier in the long run. How could we be happier than to be filled with the fruit of the spirit? It can take a while to get fruit from a newly planted sapling. We don’t get immediate gratification by planting a little apple tree or orange tree. We have to wait a year or two or three before we are gratified by a crunchy apple or a sweet orange. We do experience immediate gratification when we give in to the lust of the flesh, best defined in Galatians 5:19-21 (sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, and orgies). Following those verses we are given a list of the Fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control). So we strive to deny the lusts of the flesh and instant gratification so that we reap the harvest of fruit that comes with waiting and abiding in Christ, and experience greater pleasure in the long run.
A question I have is how do you define Heart? It’s a vital concept to be considered in the Bible. After all, the first, greatest commandment says “Love God with all your heart.” Yet what is meant by Heart? It is a question I have asked myself many times. I think Heart refers to our desires and motivation. Many Christian writers through the ages have said that the base desire of all humans is to be happy. People desire that which will make them happy. People who have had the eyes of their hearts (desires) opened ( Ephesians one), realize that desiring God and His will is the ultimate road to happiness. We have this constant struggle between satisfying the desires of the flesh (which brings immediate gratification and is quickly lost) and desiring the things of God (delayed gratification in most cases, in which the happiness has an eternal effect). Ideally we deny the flesh and enjoy God.
Happy are the people whose God is the LORD.
Psalm 144:15
“Because they love me”, says the LORD, –
I will rescue them
I will protect them
I will answer them
I will be with them in trouble
I will deliver them
I will honor them
I will satisfy them with long life
I will show them my salvation
Psalm 91
I just read this book for the second time called Ready Player One. It’s about an eighteen year old boy who lives in the future. The future is ugly and all messed up. Nobody likes the real world, so those who have a computer and internet access, live in a computer simulated world where everything is beautiful. The billionaire who created this computer universe has died. Before he dies he created an elaborate game where the object is to find an egg that he has hid in his universe. Whoever finds the egg gains control of the universe and all of the creators wealth.
After reading this novel, I have begun to think of the Christian life as a huge computer game. I know that the Christian life is much more than a computer game, but I see similarities to following Christ and playing a computer game.
When I was in my early twenties, computers and programming and software were relatively new and I was fascinated by it all. I had played many computer and video games and I loved them, although I wasn’t very good at them. Except Pong. This was one one of the first video games to go on sale to the general public. I begged my parents for it incessantly at Christmas one year, and I got it. I played it every free moment I had and nobody could beat me.
In my senior year of high school I took a basic computer programming class in the basic language in the very first class that was offered at my school. I enjoyed it a lot, and later went on to take programming classes at a Jr. College. I started a little software business called Onward Christian Software and began to make my own Christian Bible adventure games.
I said all of that to say this: I have played a bunch of computer games and I have made some computer games and I see a lot of parallels between computer games and the Christian life.
One is that people who program computer games make them for the players to have fun. Naturally they want to make money, but they won’t make money if people don’t have fun. God created the incredible universe that we live in because he loves us and wants us to be happy.
Two. Games have rules. If you follow the rules you advance. If you don’t, you lose points and eventually die. God made a lot of rules for us to live successfully in this world he created. If we follow the rules we live happily ever after. If we don’t, we live miserable lives and die in our sins.
Three. To play computer games, you have to put quarters in a machine, or have to buy some kind of computer device and software to play the games or someone has to buy it for you, as my parents did for me with Pong. To play the ultimate game, or live the Christian life, we have to realize that Christ paid the price on Calvary. Most of the Old arcade computer games began with the words, Ready Player One? Revelation three has the words of Christ, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears and opens the door, I will come in.” That is the biblical equivalent of “Ready Player One?” We push the red button on the console of our existence, indicating we are ready to commit our lives to Jesus, and the real game of LIFE begins.
Four. Levels. All computer games have levels. Many have more than 100 levels. Naturally the first few levels are relatively easy. As the player progresses they become more challenging, both in strategies and in quickness of the fingers in playing the game. This too is like the Christian life. Many Christians talk about when they first began to follow Christ, and the constant joy they experienced when the Holy Spirit opened the eyes of their hearts and they saw everything with a new perspective. Levels of a new believer often include baptism, joining a church, long periods of Bible reading, and, hopefully, discipleship classes.
Most new computer games kinda hold your hand and give you detailed instructions during the first few levels to acclimate the player to the game’s environment, how to maneuver in that environment and what tools or weapons are necessary and how to use those tools or weapons. A new Christian generally receives much of the same hand holding with the pastor of the church, elders, teachers and new Christian friends. Small groups can be especially encouraging. Most importantly, the presence of the Lord seems tangibly ever near.
As a game player advances in levels, he or she faces grater challenges. Frustrations increase and the game helps disappear. Their are temptations to quit and to move on to an easier game. Many Christians face similar challenges as they progress down the spiritual path of New Life. Sometimes God feels distant. Joy no longer floods their soul as it did before. They see factions in the church and perceive hypocrisy. The Christian life is no longer the utopia they once thought it was. The worst thing is that intimacy they once felt with God seems distant.
In the book Ready Player One, there are instances when all the players in the world are stuck on particular levels for months at a time. Many end up giving up. This is not unlike the Christian game of LIFE, where some people struggle with a particular situation for months at a time. They see no way out. No answer is immediately forthcoming. Some face many dark nights of the soul where God seems absent from them. Many give up. Jesus alluded to different “levels” with his parable of the soils. There is the level of joy and then persecution. There is the level of peace and then worry. Finally there is the level of endurance and then much fruit.
When a player tries and tries and tries again, and then finally masters a difficult level, he is filled with happiness and is excited about the new knowledge and strategies that he has developed that will prove very beneficial to him as he continues the game. The same is true for the Christian who remains faithful to the truth and cause of Christ. When she comes out on the other end victorious, she feels a greater intimacy with her Lord and Savior, a joy and contentment never felt before. She can say with the Apostle Paul, “I have learned in all things to be content.” She knows now, that when there was only one set of footprints on the sand, that Jesus was carrying her.
Five. Game Over. You Win. This is where I think that the parallels of the Christian Life and video games break down. The Christian Life never ends. We never ultimately win because Life goes on forever. When we get to heaven it is not Game Over, but in a sense, just beginning. God calls all Christians to make beauty, do good, and learn and disseminate truth. I think that continues in heaven and in the New Earth. An example. I am the gardener at a home for needy children in Oaxaca, Mexico. I love designing and planting gardens. I designed the courtyard at the mission with flowers, bushes, a fountain, paths and grassy areas. Recently the administrator at another home for needy children in Baja, California, Mexico, asked me to go there and design and plant another garden area. I was happy to do it because God loves me and wants me to be happy and wants me to make others happy enjoying a beautiful garden. Now, will my happiness in making gardens end when I get to heaven? I don’t think so because it is a desire and gift that God has given me.
I don’t think that when we get to heaven we will be standing around the throne of God worshipping Him for ten thousand years and then God will say, “You may be seated.” We will be worshipping Him for eternity, but worshipping Him and glorifying Him and enjoying Him by using the gifts and desires He gave us while on earth. The Bible talks about being faithful in the small things (on earth?), and being rewarded with greater things (in heaven, or on the New Earth?). Paul said that our eyes have not seen, nor our ears heard, nor can our minds comprehend what God has prepared for us. This verse has application not only for our life on earth but for the afterlife as well. C.S. Lewis writes that our life and service to God in this life is only a preparation for what we will be doing in the Life to come.
Having said all that, I think that when I get to heaven, that God just might give me a thousand square miles of wilderness with rivers, lakes, ponds and mountains, and tell me to get to work turning it into a garden, with unlimited resources at my disposal. Now that would be fun. I won’t be done with gardening, making beauty, in heaven. I will just be beginning. It won’t be game over, but a new level, beyond my imagination, just starting.
Ready Player One?
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“Remember He is the artist and you are only the picture. You can’t see it. So quietly submit to be painted—i.e., keep fulfilling all the obvious duties of your station (you really know quite well enough what they are!), asking forgiveness for each failure and then leaving it alone. You are in the right way. Walk—don’t keep on looking at it.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
I grew up in an evangelical, pentecostal church, which is to say, I grew up singing ” I surrender all. I 
surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.” I didn’t think a lot about the words. I didn’t need to. The message seemed pretty clear at the time. A few years ago I did some thinking about the message. I don’t sing that song any more.
There are a few reasons I don’t sing “I surrender all” any more. The main reason is that I don’t surrender all. When I began to consider what I was really saying, I realized that not only did I not surrender all, I decided that it was impossible to surrender all, not just for me, but for anyone. It is kinda like the idea of loving God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. All means every second of everyday. It’s impossible. Not gonna happen. It’s a worthy goal that all Christians strive for, but will not happen this side of eternity.
Singing “I surrender all made me feel like a liar and a hypocrite. So I quit singing it. I look around at others singing that song with gusto, and think “If you really have surrendered all, the more power to you! But I have my doubts.” Hopefully what they really mean to say is that I really want to surrender all and am moving in that direction.
I have been helping out in a home for needy children in Mexico for almost 11 years now. There are three homes for needy children in Mexico run by Foundation For His Ministry. It was started by Charla Pereau 50 years ago. I admire Charla as much or more than anyone I know. She was at the home for needy children in Oaxaca, Mexico, where I serve, a few years ago. We have devotions every morning and she was to speak one morning. Before she spoke, most everyone sang the old standard, “I surrender all.” Then Charla began to speak. This soldier of the faith, this fount of wisdom, this woman who has not received a salary in all her years of leadership and is the epitome of Jesus admonition, ” deny yourself daily”, said “I can’t sing `I surrender all`”. I sing “I surrender some.” And she went on to talk about the difficulty and challenge of the words “I surrender all.” My admiration for her grew even greater that day!
That song was sung in church the other day, and I began to think about it more. I thought about that word SURRENDER and what it connotes. I thought of a crook sticking a gun in my face and demanding my wallet. I surrender my wallet, but I am not happy about it. I don’t give him my money because he loves me and wants me to be happy. I relinquish my dough under force.
I thought of General U. S. Grant when he laid siege to Vicksburg in the Civil War. The people of the city were starving to death.
The Confederate General, John Pemberton, who had at one time before the war helped Grant out financially, sent a message to Grant asking for honorable terms of surrender. Grant wrote back saying that all he would accept was immediate and unconditional surrender! The Confederate General did surrender his troops and the city, although he was mighty angry about the unconditional surrender. From then on Grant was known as Unconditional Surrender Grant. Is that how we should think about God? Unconditional Surrender God?
The New Testament does not use the word surrender. It uses the word “repent”, which has a much different meaning than surrender. It means “to radically change the way you think about something. ” God does not ask us to surrender anything, especially by force. He asks us to change the way we think about things like our possessions and behavior. When the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts and gives us a new perspective on our things, attitudes and behavior, we gladly give up material possessions or modify our actions because we come to the realization that God really does love us and really does want us to be happy, and that by getting rid of stuff and changing the way we do things, we will, indeed be happier.
It’s called cooperation with God, not coercion by God. It’s participation with God in Kingdom actions and attitudes. It is not God putting a knife to our throats or twisting our arm behind our back and waiting for us to cry “uncle”. We willingly come to God and His will, not singing “I surrender all” , but singing a different tune, “nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.”
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When most of us get up in the morning we have a good idea of what we need to, or want to do that day.
We have To Do lists or check a daily planner that we check. Sometimes our day actually goes the way we hoped it would go. Many times it does not. What is our reaction when things don’t go our way? Frustration? Anger? Depression? Anxiety? Usually our reaction depends on the extent to which we are inconvenienced or the magnitude of the interruption of our plans, or whether we perceive the change of plans as positive or negative.
A few days ago I went out to the soccer field at the home for needy children where I cooperate with God in blessing poor children. I am the gardener and one of my jobs is to water the soccer field every morning. It’s usually a simple, mundane task. I go into the room that houses the water pump, push the power lever up, the pump goes on and the playing field is irrigated.
On this particular day, I found the door locked. I never lock it. Evidently someone, probably one of the kids, was fooling around and inadvertently closed the door and locked it. I had to walk back to my house, find the key and unlock it. My plans for the day had already been thrown off kilter, although mildly. With key in hand I trudged back to the pump house, unlocked the door, and threw the power switch. The 5h.p. pumped roared to life, but no water came out of the sprinkler.
The pump had lost its prime, which happens occasionally. I keep a water bucket handy just in case. Normally the water bucket actually has water in it, or I can dip it into the 10,000 liter cistern to fill it up. That day the bucket was dry and the cistern too low to get any water. I had to take the bucket to a faucet, fill it up, and carry it back to prime the pump. A bumpy start to my well planned day. I had an uneasy feeling that this was not going to be my day. Fortunately, when I turned on the power, water shot out of the sprinkler, and I was back to my regularly scheduled day.
I tell this story to illustrate a point. When something interrupts my plans or expectations, I think negatively. In the account above, I blamed irresponsible kids for locking the door. When I had to go for water, I figured it was going to be “one of those days!” Maybe your the same way. It’s what the old positive thinker, Zig Zigler called “stinking thinking”. What if we considered every interruption of our plans, an interruption by a God who loves us and wants us to be happy?
A verse that I have been thinking about a lot lately is 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” One reason that I have been thinking about this verse is that I listened to a teaching on YouTube from Dallas Willard. He mentioned that when he goes to teach or preach, that he prepares thoroughly, but that he also hopes and expects that when he is teaching, something unexpected will happen. He wants something that he has not prepared for to happen. Why? Because of 1Corinthians 2:9. He loves God and hopes that God has prepared something for him that he has not conceived of.
What a great attitude. I want that attitude. I want to constantly have the mindset that when something I have not prepared for happens, that it is a gift from God who loves me and wants me to be happy. A God who knows everything and who knows me better than I know myself. He created me and knows what makes me tick, therefore he throws things in my path from time to time that I have not prepared for or conceived of.
I think that we have all been going about our day and out of the blue we find some money. Maybe a ten dollar bill in the gutter, or a couple of bucks in the washing machine. How do we feel? Great. It’s a pleasant surprise to find money. It’s something unexpected that we didn’t prepare for. I think we should have the same attitude toward whatever unexpected event happens in our lives. Even if on the surface it appears bad or negative. As Christians we know that ALL THINGS work together for those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). We also know that IN EVERYTHING we should give thanks, for this is God’s will (1 Thes. 5).
The greatest, unexpected thing happened over two thousand years ago in a stable in the small town of Bethlehem. God became flesh and dwelt among us. No one saw that coming. No one had ever conceived of such a thing. A savior, Our Savior was born! Who would have thought? Who could have known? Nobody. But God did it because he loves us and wants us to be happy.
So how about, the next time that we are having one of those days, and nothing seems to be going right, we pause for a minute and thank God for intervening in our well planned, well organized day, because He has prepared something better for us.
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He that believes that everything that happens to him is for the best, cannot possibly complain for the want of something better. From A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
To Enjoy God 