The Problem with Happiness

I just got married a few weeks ago (pretty good explanation as to why I haven’t been on here in a while, eh? ). One of our bags was lost for part of our honeymoon, I’ve developed strep throat since we’ve gotten back, and sleep has been an elusive little bugger. Yet this has still been the happiest few weeks of my life easily. 

And that’s when the trouble started.

I once wrote on a different blog that I was having a difficult time keeping God first and Leah (who was then my girlfriend of just over a month) second. I got better, I believe, as some of the newness and excitement died down and the relationship grew deeper. We got closer to each other and to God. Things were going really well.

Then we got engaged and the countdown toward our married life and all the… ummm… benefits thereof began. The desire kept rising along with our impatience. Meanwhile, with our focus thus diverted and the remaining bit going to planning the wedding, finding a place to live, getting furniture, doing our budget, and seemingly a hundred other things, we made little time for God in our relationship.

We were happy still, and much happier after our wedding, but instead of simply being grateful to God for each other and remembering that no gift is greater than the giver, but rather a symbol of the giver’s love, we started valuing each other too highly. I stressed out over whether I was good enough for her in a variety of areas and she greatly feared disappointing me. We had all the grace in the world for each other and practically none for ourselves. We had a brief conversation about this on our honeymoon and it helped a bit, but we didn’t get to the heart of the issue: that we had been putting each other higher than God.

Fortunately, this tale does not include a huge argument or anything worse. We had a longer conversation a few days after we got back that included confessions on both sides of idolizing each other and we’ve been doing a little better since. 

There are a few points I want to bring about this, though. The first is that you can idolize things even when you make a conscious effort to spend time with God daily. Despite the excitement of marriage and sex, Leah and I have missed only one day of devotions since we’ve gotten married. We’ve prayed together (not including blessing meals) almost every day. We talk about God and the Bible sometimes and have done Bible studies. We never forgot God during this; we just prioritized each other too highly.

The second, and more important, point is that you value highly what makes you happy. It may sound self-evident, but this came as somewhat of a revelation to me. Terrible though this may sound, I’m not used to being happy. It happens from time to time, usually through some combination of Oreos, baseball or hiking, and humor, but I haven’t had the happiest life. I was always latching on to what made me feel valuable.

I love Leah passionately, now more than even on our wedding day. She’s not where I should be getting my value from, though. I should try to make her happy (once our needs are met), but my value is not in my ability to make her happy. It’s not in my performance in the bedroom. It’s not in my ability to provide for her or give her children. It’s not even in how well I lead her as her husband or how strong our marriage is. 

Before we got married, I was fairly strong in where my value came from. I had my weak moments, but if Leah had dumped me, I honestly don’t think I would have berated myself. I’d have been miserable, but I wouldn’t have questioned my value. I would have gone to God, gone to my friends, and gotten on with my life.

After marriage and finding out how happy I could be, I became terrified I’d mess it up and lose her. As a result, I did the worst thing I could do: I put her before God. It doesn’t sound as bad as cheating, I know, but it is a surer way to divorce or a horribly broken marriage if not checked.

What I was really doing is putting myself and my happiness before God. I feared losing that happiness and so started measuring myself mercilessly against my own preconceived standards (that she wasn’t holding me to at all) to try to keep her happy. Part of that was because I really wanted her to be as happy as I was, but the other part was that if she was so happy, she’d have no reason to leave or change what she’s doing.

It’s not just the things you get your value from that you can base your worth on, but what you get your happiness from as well, which can lead to huge problems if God is not the chief source of your happiness.

And that is the problem of happiness. God wants you to be deliriously happy. He created Heaven, love, marriage, sex, chocolate, beer (you Ben Franklin fans will know the quote I’m referring to), and a beautiful planet for us to explore. He wants these things to be the appetizer, though, or perhaps the cherry on top of the milkshake. The real treat is Him, the Giver of all these things. 

If Bill Gates wrote a program to teach you how to program, you might learn how to program pretty well and be pretty pleased and grateful. But Bill himself could probably teach you much, much more than the software he wrote. He would be more interactive and would probably be able to explain himself better when you made an error. He is greater than his creation and far better.

It is the same with God, save that the difference between the gift He’s given me in Leah and Himself is so much bigger that all attempts to analogize it are futile. It is about finding my value in Him, but beyond that, it is about finding joy in Him as well. 

No, we will not die like dogs! We will fight like lions!

My favorite movie growing up was Three Amigos. The cast had Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short as rather conceited and very stupid movie stars in the early 1900s, making cheesy Westerns. A small village in Mexico is being harassed by a bandit leader named El Guapo (Spanish for “The Handsome”), so the village, not realizing the movies are fake, hires the Amigos to come fight for them. They think it’s a movie set and so are completely at ease when El Guapo rides into town with 25 men to kill them. They deliver their trademark line, given in the title of this post, and start riding around shooting their pistols, loaded with blanks, into the air.

Had they known that their opponents were armed with real bullets and had probably all killed men before, they would have never come in the first place, much less be willing to ride out against them. Yet, believing they were untouchable and that their enemies’ fall before them was guaranteed, they had perfect bravery. The actual situation didn’t matter, just their perception of it.

That’s how our faith is. We believe in an almighty God Who has the power to do whatever He wants, even bend time and space to suit His will. He could do anything, even have earth invaded by radioactive flying camels who spoke only Mandarin with a strong Canadian accent. He’s God. He can protect us from anything. He knows the future. He knows what is best for us. He tells us to do what will be in our best interests.

Yet we often fear and let that fear stop us from doing anything. “Yeah, I know God told me to quit my job and become a missionary, but I have a family to feed.” As though God was totally unaware that you now have a wife and children to look after. He knows how many hairs are on your head; He is most certainly aware that you have a family and He has a plan to care for them when you follow His will. “I know God wants me to open up to my neighbor about Him, but that guy is a violent drunk.” God helped a shepherd boy defeat a giant who had been a warrior probably longer than the boy had been alive. If He tells you to do something, He can protect you from the consequences.

“What if He doesn’t? He called Peter to be a disciple, but Peter was crucified.” Yes, he was. But do you think that Peter would have chosen another life as a means to avoid this death? Jesus revealed to him how he’d die, told Peter to follow anyway, and Peter did. Why? Because a life with Jesus that ends in a horrible death is far better than a life of ease and peaceful death without Him. Peter knew that it is not what happens to this body that matters, but what happens to our spirit. He knew that nothing on earth could take him out of Christ’s hands and so nothing could really hurt him. He had the kind of faith that enabled him to say anything God told him to in front of anyone.

Your confidence in yourself is based on your confidence in God. You can’t have a strong belief in your own value without having a strong belief in the One giving you that value. If you have strong faith in God’s power and love for you, though, you will know you are never a dog and you will have the Lion of the tribe of Judah fighting for you. What is there to fear?

Totally Out of Control

We’ve all had our moments where we flip out. These come from feeling like we’re not in control of the situation anymore. When it seems things are all stacked against us, that all our efforts are being frustrated, that we are doomed to failure in something we’ve deemed important (which is usually something to which our value is tied), we sometimes lose control of ourselves.

The truth is that our own actions are the only things we can control, and that only because God allows us to. Everything else is in His control. You can make money and invest it, but the stock market could crash or the bank could go bankrupt. You can work out every day and eat only super-foods, yet you could still die of cancer at 45. You can be a phenomenal employee and still be laid off if the company goes under. You can raise your kids perfectly, only to have them enticed away by someone who doesn’t have their best interests in mind. 

A scary thought, isn’t it?

It used to depress me more than anything when I thought about it. It’s easy to think, “Well, what’s the point then? Just stop trying.” That thought made me try harder if anything. Maybe, if I built up my armor – a big pile of money and a wall around my heart – nothing could hurt me. I’d be financially secure and nobody could step on what they couldn’t get to or see. The problem is I never felt secure. I never got to the point where I had enough money and I could never stow my heart deeply enough away that I didn’t feel the need to be with someone and open up to them. I needed friends, I needed a girlfriend. And family health issues made me feel helpless, despite my defenses.

I wanted to be in control so badly, but the truth was I was never in control and never could be. More importantly, I was never meant to be in control. 

Fast forwarding to last year: I met someone whom I’m going to marry in just five weeks and two days (not that I’m counting or anything). She’s everything I’ve been looking for and so much more. God even answered prayers that I made once back when I was 16 and had forgotten about. Little things that didn’t even really matter, but I thought they’d be nice little bonuses, she has, like being able to play the piano. And on all the big things, like how to raise children, how many children we want, and what to do with our finances, we agree on with almost no compromise necessary. She’s not perfect, but she’s perfect for me and way better than I had ever hoped for. 

Now, I didn’t create her. I didn’t raise her. I didn’t give her the unique skill set she has or cause her to look the way she does. I didn’t give her the attitudes she has on money, God, family, or anything else. I didn’t make her this way. 

Honestly, I wasn’t even looking for her when I first noticed her. I was new to the young adults group at our church and was about to ask someone else out. On the night Leah and I met, we went to IHOP, where there was only one seat available near my intended target, and then the other half of the table was open. The guy I was with forged ahead to the first seat and I was left on the other side, where I ended up across from and down one from Leah. It was her first time going out with us afterward, though she’d been with the group for months. Even then, we might not have had a spark had someone else not asked what I did and, on hearing that I wrote books, Leah asked for help getting hers online. She read my book on confidence and started hoping I’d ask her out. The next week, we spoke only briefly, but the week after, we went to Applebee’s, where I again intended to ask my target out, but sat by Leah instead with someone else between me and the first woman. I got to talking to Leah, though, in church and especially after, and she liked MST3K, making her only the second woman I’ve known who does. It was that comment, on top of all the other things I started liking about her, that inspired me to ask her out the next week. 

So many things could have gone wrong. I could have been too cheap to go to IHOP. She could’ve used an early start time as an excuse to just go home. I could have grabbed that seat. The question about my employment might not have been asked. She might have decided she was too busy to read my book. Any of these things going wrong and we probably wouldn’t be together. Most of the things were, in a way, our choice, but all were at the nudging of a voice inside us we didn’t understand at the time. When we gave up control, we found a greater blessing in each other than we had ever hoped for.

There are two parts to this:

1. You should give up the illusion of control. You can only determine how you respond to things and what you do. You can’t force things to come out a certain way, neither can you prevent them from happening. This doesn’t mean that saving for the future, working out, or other preventative measures are bad things, but that you can’t depend on them to save you. Only God can really protect you from everything.

2. When God is in control, His will for you is better than your will for yourself. In my example, I found out that my initial target and I were not well-matched for several reasons. Leah matches better than I had even prayed for. I listened to Him when He gave me subtle suggestions about what to do those few times I saw her and the results have been incredible. Whenever I listen to Him, even when things don’t go as planned at first, they always work out better for me in the end. God’s will is always going to be better than yours, even if it seems you take a step back at first by listening to Him.

Your challenge this week is to lose control. First, find out what you’re trying to control. If it’s multiple things, pick one and give it up to God. Don’t just say the words, mean them in your heart. Let God tell you what to do in that situation and don’t do anything that neither He nor the Bible says regarding the matter. If you catch yourself trying to influence it outside of God’s will, catch yourself rather than make excuses and let Him work.

If you have any great stories of the results of this, please post them here. I’m sure your experiences will encourage others who read this blog.

Failure is NOT an Option?

The primary difference between Christian confidence and the world’s confidence is that the former is based on who you are in Christ while the latter is based on what you do. The world may tell you to believe in yourself even when you fail, but the purpose of that belief is so you can succeed next time. In other words, for those who are “confident”, failure is not an option. Mistakes are ok and errors in judgment can be acceptable, but failing no matter how many times you try isn’t. Even if you give up at one thing, such as me with my childhood dream of playing major league baseball, you’re expected to have success. If you don’t, then your confidence was a sham.

Christian confidence, on the other hand, says that not only will you fail, but that all your successes are meaningless insofar as determining your value. Yet it also elevates your value higher than any accomplishment ever could. While it doesn’t say, “You should fail,” or, “Don’t even bother trying,” your efforts don’t equal your value. They never could.

Now, one thing these two definitions of confidence have in common is that they should both encourage you to try things you wouldn’t without them. The world’s definition will get you to dust yourself off and try again because you have to prove your self-worth by succeeding eventually; it just tells you that success is possible. Christian confidence will tell you that you’ll be no less valuable even if you fall flat on your face, so there’s no shame in failing, which is one of the biggest reasons people are afraid to try.

What would you like to try, but have been afraid to because you don’t want others to think you’re a failure or because you fear rejection? Is it the opinion of the masses you fear or the opinion of one or two specific people? Ask yourself why you’re afraid, then realize that nobody’s opinion of you affects your worth in the slightest. God has already declared you priceless, so priceless you are. Once you’ve realized this, chase after your dreams. If you get them, wonderful; if not, you’re still every bit as valuable as ever, so relax and have fun chasing.

Fired Up

Let’s face it: it’s easy to get dragged down by life. It’s not even the really sad or angering moments that do it, just the daily grind. You get up, get the kids ready for school, go to work at a job you’re probably not passionate about, come home to deal with any family issues that have popped up, make dinner, make sure the house is as clean as you want it, and hopefully have an hour to unwind before bed. That same cycle repeated every day throughout the work week. Wash, rinse, repeat…while the weeks and months and years tick away.

There’s not a whole lot of passion left. It’s been largely replaced by an empty emotionalism, in part because that’s all we have time for and in part because we’ve lost our focus in life. We don’t work as though God is our boss, as Colossians 3:23 tells us to, neither do we wake up celebrating that we get to honor Him through our work. We often don’t feel like we’re making a difference, even if our job happens to be working for a charity or church.

Instead, we rant and rave over things for a couple weeks before finding something else to get upset about. Gun control after a school shooting, then religious equality when a kid is suspended for wearing prayer beads, then the government’s fiscal cliff and resultant spending cuts. A week or two from now, something else will happen and the outrage will start anew.

There are two things to take from this: 1. We are not really passionate anymore, just emotional. 2. We’re meant to be passionate about something.

Our strong reactions to things and our fire to change the world around is can be wonderful things, but only if they’re grounded in God and we’re committed to them. God has given us each a calling in life, something that He intends for us to do for Him and His kingdom. That’s what we should be passionate about, something that should always well up the fire that He has placed in us, that fire that is so eager to be stirred that it will flare up over issues that we aren’t even committed to, simply because it’s there.

My challenge for you this week is to think about what really gets you passionate. Be careful to separate passion from an emotional reaction. Think about a cause you could actually devote yourself to, not just a situation that upsets you but that you feel no real desire to get in the trenches yourself to change it. And then…get in the trenches. You don’t have to quit your job (though, if you can find a job in your passion that pays well enough to support you and your family, by all means, go for it!), but take some time on the weekend or a couple evenings a week, put aside all the mundane issues and stress, and direct your inner fire toward something you’re committed to. Fan the flames of your passion, not just because you’re called to work for God, but because that passion will fuel the rest of your life, giving you direction, purpose, and energy.

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t been fully committed yet to the cause of getting this message out to people. I’ve been halfhearted, dreaming more of being published than working to make it a reality. I am, as of today, dedicating myself to this calling on my life. Yes, there will be setbacks and yes, I won’t want to work at it every day, but this is what I’m passionate about. This is what gets me fired up. 

What are you willing to commit yourself to? What’s going to get you fired up?

Contentedly Discontent

C.S. Lewis once said in The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses, 

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Consider what you’re asking God for right now. A better job? More money? A special someone? Children? Healing?

God just worked a minor miracle in my and Leah’s lives. I won’t go into details, since it was a healing miracle involving her, but it was an answer to prayer for both of us, something we’d been praying for for months now. We’ve also been praying for God to bring in money for us as we start our new life together, to bless the foundling ministry He’s given me, and for other things.

And yet how small are all of these things compared with Him!

In the Old Testament, the high priest had abstain from enjoying his wife for several days, wash his clothes and himself, perform several sacrifices, wash his clothes and himself in the middle of those, carry in a special offering, and wear special clothes to come into God’s presence. And he could only do that once a year. If even one thing was done incorrectly, that priest would die, the bells around his tunic would stop jingling, and other priests would pull his corpse out by a rope attached to his ankles. God’s presence was so strong that any evil died instantly.

Now, after Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we can enter into God’s presence whenever we want. He may not descend in a cloud of glory, but He is the same God now as he was back then, the same God He’ll always be. And you can enter His presence without all the sacrifices and rituals because God views you as spotless through Jesus’ sacrifice. He views you as His son or daughter. He wants you to come before Him.

Imagine having the relationship of your dreams with someone impossibly attractive, smart, funny, confident, and who perfectly matches your personality. Now picture yourself not wanting to get to know this person, but instead asking if you can have a bowl of cereal before you go off on your merry way. It sounds crazy, but that’s what we do when we seek God’s blessings instead of God Himself. When we get these blessings, we’re happy, even though a treasure beyond our human imagination is still waiting for us.

I believe that we are called to be content in whatever happens to us on earth, that we should be able to sing in the prison of our trials like the apostles did. But I also believe that God wants us to never be satisfied, that He always wants us to hunger after Him. There’s always more of Him to discover, more of Him to know, more of Him to be wildly passionate about.

Leah and I are taking the day off from each other Wednesday. Just a time for us to relax, spend a little more time in the Word and in prayer, and for her to enjoy her family and friends before we’re married and we disappear for a few months. Though we’ll only go about 44 hours without seeing each other, I’m going to miss her and she’ll miss me. Why? Because we’re never satiated with each other. We never get to the point where we’re full of each other and ready to part ways. We’re madly in love and even when we’re not deepening our relationship or sharing secrets, we’re enjoying each other’s presence.

That’s how we’re meant to be with God. Not always asking for things, not chastising ourselves and begging for forgiveness all the time, not praying for guidance every time we’re in His presence, but just spending at least some of our time seeking Him. Always looking to know Him better. Falling ever more deeply in love with our Father.

I’d like to challenge you this week to spend at least five minutes a day in prayer, not asking God for anything at all or even praising Him, but just seeking to know Him better. He’s better than anything He can give you.

Day by Day

I’m reading through the Bible again and am in the last part of Exodus, where God starts giving Moses instructions for building the Tabernacle and the priest’s robes and for giving sacrifices. To be honest, it’s painfully boring to me, but that doesn’t mean it is without instruction. One thing that stuck out to me today is that the priests were to eat from what was sacrificed. They were not to be tending their own flocks or threshing wheat from their own fields, but they were fed by the people. Leftovers were to be burned rather than left until the morning. In other words, if there was no sacrifice, the priests would go hungry.

Another thing that jumped out was that everyone else is commanded to take the Sabbath off, but the priests are commanded to sacrifice every day. In other words, they are working for God doing what He commanded them specifically to do.

Even though the Israelites were told to give sacrifices for a variety of reasons, making the business of atoning for sin very costly, God provided for them so that they didn’t have the excuse of being too poor. God also provided enough so that the priests didn’t go hungry, either. When they walked according to God’s commandments, God provided for them.

They had to walk daily according to His commands, though. If the priests decided to take a day off or if the rest of the tribes decided to stay home and watch the Super Bowl rather than bring a sacrifice, the priests would have nothing to eat. The priests had to daily trust God to provide, but also had to daily follow Him to receive that blessing.

I’m getting married soon, and one of the things that has struck me about self-confidence is just how difficult it is to truly get into one’s heart. My fiancee was initially drawn to me because she read my book, A More Confident You, and agreed with much of it. Despite having written a book on the topic and feeling called to share this message, I still occasionally get caught up in getting my value from being with her or from accomplishments or how sales are going. She still tends to get her value from the little boys she watches, from me, and from her family. The fault for both of these, as the leader of the relationship, is largely mine, for true Christian confidence has not been a daily or even near-daily focus. We’ve gone weeks at a time without it really coming up. Those weeks are when our confidence is most likely to slip back into the old ways.

Your value is not something that you have to earn. You can’t do a thing to raise or lower it. Your confidence, however, needs to be worked on daily. You need to remind yourself that you are a son or daughter of God, that your value is set and eternal and higher than you could ever hope to get it by your own works. You need to remember that others are valued just as highly by God and so you are equal with everyone, neither more nor less valuable. Every day. 

My challenge to you this week is to remind yourself of your value every day. This is not positive self-affirmation in the sense that you’re saying, as Bob did in What About Bob?, “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful,” over and over or telling yourself you can conquer any challenge, but rather a reminder that your true value has nothing to do with anything you’ve done and everything to do with what He’s done. At the end of a week of doing this, evaluate how you feel about yourself, others, and God. If you’re willing, please write your story here. I’d love to hear back from you.