Can Jesus make me happy?

My thoughts naturally gravitate towards dark places.  My thoughts of God begin with his judgement, and doctrines like predestination and hell.  I obsess over the hardest truths in the Bible.  I question whether God is really good.  I know that my faith should bring me joy, but often it makes me anxious and worried.

I talked to a friend about this and asked her, ‘do you think our low mood feeds our dark thoughts, or our dark thoughts feed our low mood?’  We concluded that they feed off each other.  There can be an unhealthy spiral of mood and thought. 

It is not like this for everyone.  Some people believe the exact same things I believe but they gravitate towards the grace, compassion and love that is written all over the Bible.  When they come across a difficult teaching they read it in light of the beautiful person of Jesus, and trust God even when they want to disagree with him.

The truth is that we all read the Bible through the lens of our temperament and experiences.   

If you were to meet me I would come across as outgoing and happy.  That is not an act.  I enjoy being with people.  But get to know me a little better and you will see how insecure I am.  I also struggle with intrusive thinking, and have experienced times of depression and chronic anxiety.  These things shape how I read the Bible and how I think about God.

However, spirituality has been proven to be good for us.  Professor Andrew Simms, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, comments that, ‘The advantageous affect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in physiatry and medicine generally’.  I want to suggest that Christianity, with its emphasis on forgiveness, acceptance and mercy, goes further in helping us than mere spirituality.

In a weekly series of posts, I want to focus on a number of Christian words that can feed our happiness.  These are community, purpose, grace, love, gratitude, service, maturity and hope.  But I am going to begin, in the next post, by saying that sometimes our faith should make us sad.

Let’s pray:

Father God.  Help us to trust you.  Your ways are not always our ways, and sometimes we are baffled by what is happening in our life.  We don’t always understand you.  We are tempted towards dark thoughts about you.  Let the light of Jesus pour into our thoughts.  Strengthen us through the Holy Spirit to know your goodness.  Turn your face towards us and give us peace.  Amen.