Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Happiness runs in a circular motion

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

From Isaiah 49
Thus says the Lord, "Say to the prisoners: 'Come out!' Say to those in darkness: 'Show yourselves!' Along the way you will find pasture on every bare height. You shall not hunger or thirst, and the scorching wind and sun will not strike you. I will lead you and guide you beside springs of water. I will cut a road through all my mountains. I will not forget you. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."

Even if I could see God's hand, I could not read his palm. His thoughts are not my thoughts, his ways are not my ways. I can never see the big picture from far enough away. I can, however, trust his words to be good and true. There is a time free from sorrow and suffering, a time of happiness.

Is this good, is this true? Is this too good to be true? Ron Rolheiser looks ahead to the Incarnation and says, "In Jesus birth, something fundamental has changed. Yes, it is too good to be true. What a marvelous description of the incarnation" (Holy Longing, p. 92).

Still we shy away, reluctant even to define happiness, let alone take the risk of claiming it. In her masterpiece, All Passion Spent, Vida Sackville-West writes about happiness.

They would say she had been happy. But what was happiness? Had she been happy? That was a strange, clicking word to have coined - meaning something definite to the whole English-speaking race, a strange clicking word with its short vowel and its spitting double p's, and its pert tilted y at the end, to express in two syllables a whole summary of life. Happy. But one was happy at one moment, unhappy two minutes later, and neither for any good reason; so what did it mean? - p. 167-168

"They would say?" Does anyone know what makes someone else happy? Some of us think we do, and thereby run the risk of making someone else miserable. I need to earn the right to be heard in anyone else's life, and even then I must speak softly.

Reinhold Niebuhr surely was thinking of Jesus' beatitudes in his famous Serenity Prayer, when he prayed to have "reasonable happiness in this world, and supreme happiness with you in the next."

Those beatitudes surprised his listeners: "Happy are ... the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for my sake." Great is your reward in heaven.

God pours himself into each of us. When I remember this I can quiet my pride, avarice, and fear. Out of this gratitude I get into the "flow" of giving, sharing, helping, and doing for others. Happy I am. Call on the new day.

Your promises are so sweet and rich, Lord. Always there is sorrow and suffering, but so also there is always joy. And you are happy to have us eat the dessert first sometimes. So I want to just take big bites and not worry about indigestion. You are merciful and good forever.

Devotions Archive

Happiness runs in a circular motion

Wednesday, March 14, 2018