Can Jesus make me happy? Praise

 

“Whenever we have to praise God, what do we do? We simply say what He is! ‘You are this and You are that.’ … If you want to praise the Lord Jesus Christ, tell the people about Him.”
(Charles Spurgeon)[1]

Conor told me about a difficult year that He passed through.  He said that two things sustained Him.  Seeking to serve others and singing praises to God.  Conor is very musical, and so praising God might come more easily to him than some of the rest of us. But whether your voice seems more suited to an opera or a shower, singing is good for you.

Research shows that singing reduces stress, improves mood and mental health, develops a sense of belonging and connection, and even helps reduce people’s snoring.[2]  We can witness some of this all around us.  Go to a big football match and tell them not to sing.  The supporters would find that very difficult.  It is a part of what bonds their together and it expresses their passion.  Praise is something that we are designed to enjoy.  It’s good to sing praises to God, it is pleasant and fitting (Ps.147:1).  

The psalmists regularly command us to sing.  We are to be creative in our singing as we sing a new song to the Lord (Ps. 96:1).  When Christians gather we not only sing to God, we sing to each other (Eph. 5:19).  It is a part of how we teach is each the truth, share our joy and build our sense of community.

I am struck by how often psalms that start out with expressions of sorrow end up with cries of confidence (e.g. Ps. 13).  It seems that as the psalmists sing and pray to God, their confidence in God’s goodness grows.  Of course, we can’t be simplistic here.  Psalm 88 is a song, and yet at the end of this song the psalmist still feels a great weight of darkness.

Of course, singing is not the only way to praise God.  We can speak our praises.  Praise is to be a part of our prayer lives.  In fact, I think that it is the Cinderella of prayer.  It’s the part that tends to be neglected.  We are quick to ask God for things, slower to thank Him and even slower to praise Him.  That being said there is praise in asking Him for things for our dependence upon Him recognises His generosity and ability. 

Command yourself to praise God

Psalm 103 is one of my favourites, and I am going to focus on it in this chapter.  It helped me a lot at a very difficult time in my life.  It begins with a command to ‘bless’ the Lord (ESV).  To bless God is to praise Him.  It is to speak and sing of His greatness and goodness.

David commands his soul to praise God.  His praise is not to be just a response to His feelings.  It’s an act of the will.  In the psalms praise and joy are often tied together.  There will be times when joy leads us to praising God.  James says that if anyone if happy they should sing (Jam. 5:13).  But there are no doubt times when praising God leads to joy.  The act of praising God lifts our mood.

Forgetfulness is the great enemy of praise

As well as commanding his soul to bless the Lord David tells his soul says not to forget all God’s benefits.  Don’t forget the things that God has done for you.  Forgetfulness is the great enemy of both thanksgiving and praise. 

Praising God requires effort.  We need to engage our minds.  Indeed, it is part of the renewal of our minds (Rom. 12:1-2).  We need to not just recall what He has done for us, but think about who His is.  David points out that God forgives, heals, redeems and crowns us in steadfast love and mercy.  He satisfies us with good things and renews our youth.  Not only is He good to us, He works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

Praise and thanksgiving

The Norwegian writer, Ole Hallesby, points out that it is not always possible to draw a clear demarcation between praise and thanksgiving, because both consist in giving glory to God.  However, he says that praise lies on a higher plane than thanksgiving, because while I am thanking God for things my thoughts still circle around myself to some extent, whereas in praise we move towards a self-forgetful adoration of God.[3]

Think of what you say when you observe a beautiful view.  Your thoughts are drawn away from yourself.  You don’t look at the Victoria Falls and think, ‘I am wonderful’.  You think ‘this is wonderful’, or better still ‘God is wonderful!’  We feel a joy that is not about us.  That is good for us.[4]  In a society where we anxiously focus our thoughts on ourselves it is healthy to gaze upon the God who is loving and powerful, beautiful and satisfying.  It is also thrilling to realise that such a great God has His loving eyes watching over us.

I think we can turn thanksgiving to praise.  We thank God that He has forgiven us, and then we praise Him that His forgiveness stems from the fact that He is compassionate and gracious.  David lists some of the things that God does for us, and then praises the character of God.  He declares that the Lord is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love’ (Ps. 103:8).  This declaration of God’s mercy, grace, slowness to anger and abounding love occurs numerous times in the Old Testament (e.g. Exod. 34:6, Num. 14:18, Ps. 86:15).  These are characteristics that are at the core of who He is.

It is natural to praise what we love

When C. S. Lewis he began to think seriously about Christianity he found the demand to praise God off-putting.[5] Why would God need people to praise Him?  Afterall, the Psalms tell us that God needs nothing from us (Ps. 50:12). 

Then he realised that praise is the most natural thing for someone to do.  The world is full of people praising their favourite team or delighting in those they love.  In fact, the love between people remains somewhat incomplete until they get to express their praise of each other.

It’s morally right to praise God because He is the supremely beautiful and all-satisfying object.  It would be wrong to deny His beauty by our silence.  He also calls us to praise Him in His love.  There is a sense in which we encounter God in praising Him, individually and together.  He wants us to praise Him so that we might experience joy in Him.

When I experience something wonderful, one of my first desires is to have my wife, Caroline, experience it too.  If I go to a nice café, I want to come back with her.  If I see a beautiful view, I want to bring her to share it with me.  That is the nature of praise.  As we focus on the goodness of God, we will want to invite people to see what we see.  David ends this psalm by calling the angels and even creation itself to joining with Him in praising God.

Praise God for the cross

Perhaps the most beautiful thing we read in this Psalm is the God is a compassionate father.  As a compassionate father He knows our weaknesses.  Regarding these verses Tim Keller writes, ‘the more weak and needy a child is, the more the father’s heart goes out to him or her.  So God knows us to the bottom yet nevertheless loves us to the skies—literally.’[6] 

David’s talk of God as forgiver, healer, redeemer, lover and even father should bring our thoughts to Jesus and His cross.  The cross is among the things of first importance that we believe (1 Cor.15:3).  It is the centre piece of all Christian preaching (1 Cor. 1:23).  It is the focus of heavenly praise (Rev. 5:12).  Our praise remains incomplete until we sing about Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Conclusion

If have wondered if seeking to lift my mood through praising God is a self-centred motive for praying and singing about His goodness.  However, in His great compassion God wants to satisfy our needs with good things.  However, God delights to give joy to our hearts.  Wanting to improve our mood isn’t a bad motive for praise, but it is an incomplete motive.  We should be asking God to work in our hearts and create a desire that we might honour Him through our praise.  It does honour Him when we seek our joy through praising Him.

‘Lord you are so good in commanding me to find my joy in praising you.  You are so kind in telling me to take the focus off myself.  You are so beautiful to look upon.  May I honour you by being satisfied in you.  May I praise you because you are worthy of that praise.  May I seek to please You in all I sing, speak or pray.  Amen’.

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[1] Spurgeon Gems. 

[2] https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-singing.  Accessed 10/5/23.  Caroline is going to be insisting I sing more as I am a huge snorer.

[3] Ole Hallesby, Prayer (London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1948), pp. 108-109.

[4] I first came across this idea from John Piper.

[5] C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (London:  Fount, 1998), pp. 77-84.

[6] Tim Keller, My Rock and My Refuge (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2015), p. 255.

Can Jesus make me happy? Hope

 

I think that we’re wired for hope.  It’s how God has made us.  Joy can be experienced in looking ahead to good things.  We enjoy planning our holidays.  We may feel a sense of excitement as we get ready for a wedding or a party.

It’s a very serious thing when people lose hope.  I remember going through a time of depression and feeling all hope was gone.  I had never felt this type of low before, and I feared that it would never lift.  It did lift.  I have talked to psychiatric professionals who assure me that the very darkest feelings almost always pass.  When I meet friends that are going through such dark times I try to assure them that it will not always be like this.

Christian hope is sure hope.  It is not like my hope that the Munster rugby team will win the European Cup next year.  Our hope in Christ is certain.  It is like when the Munster team go into the last play of the game more than seven points up.  The game doesn’t end until the play is over, but the opposition can’t score enough points in that play to overturn the result.  The final whistle has not blown, but I can start celebrating in the terraces.

The apostle Paul said that faith, hope and love remain for all eternity (1 Cor. 13:13).  It would seem that hope will be a feeling we experience in heaven.  Hope is looking forward in anticipation.  I don’t know how time will work in heaven, but it is as if we will be saying, ‘today was great, can’t wait for tomorrow.’  There will always be things there to look forward to.

Jesus gave hope to troubled people

The gospels are full of the love of Jesus.  On every page we see His compassion and love.  This is clearly the case on the night before the crucifixion.  That evening, when Jesus needed the disciples’ comfort more than ever before, He actually comforts them. 

Jesus knows what awaits those disciples in the coming hours will be very stressful.  In fact, that night Jesus warned all of us that we can expect trouble in this life (Jn. 16:13).  So, what does Jesus do to prepare them for the difficulties they are going to face?  Jesus tells them to trust Him, and to look ahead to what awaits them.  He gives them something to look forward to.  He gives them a sure and certain hope.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?’ (Jn. 14:1-2).

The cross and the resurrection are the grounds of our hope

When you think about Jesus preparing a place in heaven for you, don’t think in terms of Jesus tidying a room in the Father’s house or hanging your favourite pictures on the wall.  Think of Him hanging on a cross.  Jesus is telling the disciples that it is through His going—via the cross and resurrection—that He is preparing for us a place in the Father’s home.

 

Jesus looks forward to being with us

But I don’t live thinking about heaven all the time.  I am more likely to look forward to my summer holiday than I am to think of the eternity that lies beyond this life.  I think our apathy towards heaven may be because we have no idea how great it will be.  In fact, if you view of heaven as simply an eternal church service, then maybe you secretly dread it.

Heaven promises lots of wonderful things.  There will be no more sickness or pain.  God’s ways will no longer be a frustrating mystery to us.  God Himself will comfort us.  We will be reunited with Christian family and friends.  But the most important thing about heaven in that Jesus is there.

Look at the goal of Jesus’ work.  ‘I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be there also.’  One of the puritans explained that it’s as if Jesus was saying, ‘the truth is I can’t live without you, I shall never be quiet until I have you where I am, that we may never part again … Heaven will not hold me, nor my Father’s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set on you; and if I have my glory, you shall have part of it.’[i]  We could say that Jesus enjoys the certain hope of being with us for ever.

So how does hope help us now?

Sometimes things happen in church that seem to show that the Holy Spirit is guiding the meeting.  I was speaking in church on these ideas on hope when my friend Angela got up to pray.  ‘Before I pray, let me just read a couple of verses.’  She began with Romans 12:12, ‘be joyful in hope.’  That’s exactly it.  Our hope is to give us joy.  Deep joy.  Jesus saw that the disciples would face difficulties in this life, and He responds with a trust me, and then gives them the sure grounds on which to build their eternal hope.  Knowing that any trouble that we face in life will pass gives us reason for joy.  Knowing that He looks forward to us being with Him in our Father’s house gives us joy.

Recognise the goodness of hope.  Every time you find yourself looking forward to a coming holiday or a party take note of how God has wired you.  We are wired to look forward in anticipation.  All our hope is a taste of an inner longing for heaven.  Indeed, every wedding should feed that longing for the heavenly banquet (Rev. 19:6-9), as should ever time we enjoy praising God (Rev. 4-5).     Think of the dynamic of hope for Jesus.  Jesus endured the cross for the joy that lay before Him (Heb. 12:2)

Even earthly hope can give us joy.  I remember one time when I suffering from severe exam stress.  One of the ways I calmed my mind was to realise that in a few weeks the exams would be over and I would be on my holidays.  The depressed person can look forward with the hope that this too will pass.  There may tears in the night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5). 

Recognise that all other hopes fall short.  It’s not wrong to look forward to when the illness has passed or the holiday has begun.  Such hope is good for us.  I believe that we should regularly be thinking about those good things that we are looking forward to.  That is part of our fight for joy.  However, all our hopes fall short other than our hope in Jesus.  If we think that another experience or person can complete us, then we will be left demanding and frustrated, and you will squeeze the life out of your friendships. 

Taste the person we hope in.  Even now our experience of Jesus is incomplete.  We do not yet know Him fully (1 Cor. 13:12).  We have not yet seen Him face to face.  We still see dimly as in a mirror.  But we can taste Him.  We can spend time with Him.  We can experience Him through His people.  At times we even feel Him within us. 

Whenever you feel the presence of God, take note, that is a taste of heaven.  If you are struggling to feel the presence of Jesus does not mean that He is not with you.  It may simply be your circumstances affecting your mood.  Remember those times when you did feel His love.  Those times will return.  Indeed, they were just a sample from the heavenly banquet that awaits us. 

We look forward to our heavenly rest.  We will see that in our last chapter.  But first, let’s pray.

‘Lord, I believe.  Help me in my unbelief.  Teach me to enjoy spending time listening and talking with you.  May I see something of You in the love of Your people.  Please send the Holy Spirit to move me to cry out, “Abba, father.”  Let the unsatisfied longings for perfect love to cause me to look to the sure hope of what is to come.  May I never forget that the pain of this moment will soon be past, and that for the Christian the best is yet to be.  Amen.’            

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[i] Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ, page 16.

Can Jesus make me happy? (hope)

I have a problem with hell.  It is undoubtedly Jesus’ hardest teaching.  But I also have a problem with heaven.  It stretches my belief, and sometimes the pictures that people paint of heaven aren’t that attractive.

Heaven promises us lots of wonderful things.  There will be no more sickness our pain.  God’s ways will no longer be a frustrating mystery to us.  God Himself will comfort us.  We will be reunited with beloved brothers and sisters in Jesus.  But the most important thing about heaven is that Jesus is there!

Jesus wants to bring people to heaven

The gospels are full of the love of Jesus.  On every page we see His compassion.  On the evening before His crucifixion, when Jesus would have needed the disciple’s comfort more than ever before, He actually seeks to comfort them.  He knows full well what awaits Him the next day.  But He also knows that they will be left troubled and perplexed.  ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God.  Trust also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so I would have told you.  I go there to prepare a place for you’ (John 14:1-2).

‘Many rooms.’  Jesus is not reluctant to embrace and forgive people.  Earlier in John’s Gospel we read that the God did not send the Son to condemn the world, but to save it through Him (John 3:17).  If someone does not end up in heaven the responsibility is entirely theirs.  Hell stands as a terrible testimony to our human reluctance to be embraced by God’s infinite love.

Heaven is a result of the cross and resurrection

When you think about Jesus preparing a place in heaven for us, don’t think in terms of Jesus tidying a room in the Father’s house and hanging your favourite pictures on the wall.  Think of Him hanging on a cross.  Jesus is telling the disciples that it is through His death and resurrection that He is preparing for us a place in the Father’s home.  That’s why it makes perfect sense to say that Jesus is the only way to heaven.  If our lives could earn us a place in heaven would the Father have sent His Son to endure the pain of the cross?  If religion, whatever religion you choose, could earn you a place in heaven, would Jesus have endured such a thing?  If we are expected to contribute to our reconciliation with God, would Jesus have cried out ‘it is finished’ before He died?  It has been said by many preachers that the cross reveals that we are far guiltier than we ever imagined and yet far more loved than we ever dreamed.  I love the explanation of the gospel that points out that our wickedness is so serious that nothing less than the death of God’s own Son could deal with it, and that is exactly what God has done for us.

Jesus is looking forward for us to be with Him

Look at the goal of Jesus’ work.  ‘I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be there also.’  One of the puritans wrote commented on this verse that it is as if Jesus was saying, ‘the truth is I can’t live without you, I shall never be quiet until I have you where I am, that we may never part again … Heaven not hold me, nor my Father’s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set on you; and if I have my glory, you shall have part of it.’[i]

Heaven is to be in the presence of Jesus.  The Jesus the Bible speaks of.  Not the Jesus of the human imagination.  The Jesus of the cross and resurrection.  Not the Jesus who is simply a good teacher.  It was to be in Jesus’ presence that made the apostle Paul long to depart this life.  It would make no sense for someone with little interest in God to go to heaven, for God’s presence is the very essence of heaven (Rev. 21:22).

So how does heaven make us happy now? 

In one sense heaven doesn’t make us happy now.  It leaves us with an unfulfilled longing.  We are not there yet, and we still have to live in a broken world of suffering and pain.  We were made for a perfect relationship with God, and yet we have to wait until He returns before we will know Him perfectly. 

Indeed, we need to be careful not to place our unfulfilled longings on the wrong shoulders.  Many people look for a person who will complete them.  But only Jesus completes us.  If you expect any relationship to satisfy all the longings of your heart you will squeeze the life out of your friendships and will always feel let down by people.  It is not that friendships aren’t good, but we need to put our hope in God alone.

But the thought of heaven leaves us with an unfulfilled longing, it also fills us with hope.  I believe we are wired for hope.  When I was struggling with depression one of the worst things was that I lost hope.  I feared the darkness would never lift.  But the darkness of depression lifts.  This too will pass.  It might come back again in the future, but the experts all tell me that the darkest places almost always lift.  If you are depressed at the moment you need to hear that.  If your life is in crisis you need to know that things will get better.

I have struggled a lot with anxiety.  I remember one time when I had terrible anxiety over some exams I was sitting.  I was anxious that I lay down and trembled on my bedroom floor because I couldn’t get an equation I needed to learn into my head.  But I found a strange comfort in going down to the sitting room, sleeping on cushions on the floor and thinking about the fact that I would soon be passed the exams and the summer holidays would arrive.  It was the hope of what lay ahead that kept me going.

I believe we are wired for hope.  You can see it in how we get so much pleasure in looking forward to a holiday we have planned.  We might be a little frustrated waiting to get there.  But the thought of it makes us happy.  That is one of the affects that heaven is to have on us now.  The hope of heaven brings a certain brightness to the darkness we may feel in this world.  In this world we will have trouble, but Jesus has overcome this world and has set His heart on bringing us home.

Hope is for certain

I enjoy watching the Munster Rugby team.  Rugby actually has a unique way of illustrating what Christian hope is like.  Whereas in soccer the game is up when the clock is up, in rugby the game can’t end until a play is finished.  If Munster are more than seven points up (the most that could be scored in any one play), then even though there might be a setback, and even though the game is not over, you can start celebrating the victory.

Jesus has won.  The has gone and prepared that place in the Father’s house.  Life may not yet be over.  There may be setbacks to come.  But the outcome is secure.  He has us in His right hand.  He will keep us to the end.  We can look forward with happiness and joy.  

How to get ready for heaven

So how do I overcome my problem with heaven—my unbelief, and my fear that it mightn’t actually be that great.  We overcome such thoughts by deepening our relationship with Jesus.  I was listening to my friend Mitch teaching about sharing our faith.  He mentioned the compassion of Jesus.  Those words jumped out at me.  There are things that I find hard in Jesus’ teaching.  But never forget His love and compassion.  The devil has always sought to cause people to doubt God’s goodness (Gen. 3:1-6).  We must fight to hold onto our confidence in Him.  We must wrestle in getting to know Him better.  We must ask the Holy Spirit to teach us that in His presence is the fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11).  As we learn to trust that joy we have the sure hope in what lies ahead.

Let’s pray:

‘Lord, I believe.  Help me in my unbelief.  Teach me to enjoy spending time listening and talking with you.  May I see something of You in the love of Your people.  Please send the Holy Spirit to move me to cry out, “Abba, father.”  Let the unsatisfied longings for perfect love to cause me to look to the sure hope of what is to come.  May I never forget that the pain of this moment will soon be past, and that for the Christian the best is yet to be.  Amen.’            

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[i] Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ, page 16.

Can Jesus make me happy? (Maturity)

 

‘God made man for nothing but pleasure’ (Jonathan Edwards)

‘God made man for nothing but pleasure’, so declared Jonathan Edwards.  I asked a wise friend whether this could be true and he said that it is, but it would need to be qualified. 

Sometimes Christians differentiate between happiness and joy.  They say that happiness refers to those feelings that are dependant of favourable circumstances and that joy is something far deeper.  I think that is correct, although I don’t think that the English use of the word happy needs to be restricted so much.  My online dictionary says that happiness is a feeling of contentment and pleasure.  If God made us for pleasure, then I think we can say that He made us to be happy! 

So, did God make humankind to experience happiness?  What qualifications do we need to add if the statement is to be true?  The qualification is that this is not a happiness that is devoid of pain.  

Sorrowful yet always rejoicing

I love the realism of the psalms.  Many of the psalms are referred to as psalms of lament.  These psalms of lament are where an individual or the community cries out to God in their pain.  They ask hard questions of God.  They complain.  They often pray thought their sorrow to a place of rejoicing but sometimes the relief from pain does not come.  The darkest of all these psalms, Psalm 88, ends with the claim that darkness is the psalmist’s closest friend.  The psalms are given for us to pray.  They are talking about experiences that we can expect to feel in this life.

A friend pointed me to Psalm 31 where the psalmist speaks of gladness and rejoicing in God and at the very same rime being in distress, weak, sorrowful and filled with grief (verses 7-9).  He explained that joy here seems to be more than simply a good feeling – it is confidence in God – and therefore joy and sorrow can exist in the same heart.  This was certainly the experience of the apostle Paul, who wrote of being sorrowful but always rejoicing (2 Cor. 6:10).

The man of sorrows who was familiar with grief

Remember that Jesus prayed these Psalms.  These were feelings that He experienced.  Hundreds of years before he was born in Bethlehem it was foretold that He would be a man of sorrows who was familiar with grief (Isaiah 53:3).  Jesus experienced the pain of living in this dark world.  He cared about the pain that He saw people going through.  Yet surely Jesus was also a person of joy (Luke 10:21).

Jesus wept with grief.  While we are told not to grieve as those who are without hope (1 Thess. 4:13), we are to grieve.  As a pastor I am never impressed when I meet someone who is passing through grief too lightly.  I am worried for them.  Maybe they are not able to face the sorrow of their situation. 

Jesus grieved over those who refused His offer of forgiveness and life.  Looking over Jerusalem, and thinking of the judgement that was coming their way, He cried, ‘… how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing’ (Matt. 23:37).  A rich young man refused to accept Jesus on His terms and walked away spiritually empty, we read that Jesus had looked at him and loved him (Mark 10:21).  Surely it hurt Jesus to watch that man follow a path that would lead to his doom.

Sorrow over the lost

Caroline was at a funeral when someone suggested that her faith must bring her great comfort at such said times.  She replied that sometimes her faith makes her grief worse.  She has watched people she loved die who have had no interest in Jesus.  It pains her to think through what that means for them.

The apostle Paul shared such grief.  He wrote of being his deep sorrow and unceasing anguish at the fact that his own people the Jews had largely rejected the gospel (Rom. 9:2-3).  There is no easy solution for such deep pain.  I sometimes think that such sorrow will only find its relief when God wipes away every tear from our eyes at the end of the age (Rev. 21:4). 

Of course, our concern for people will also cause us to pray for and reach out to those who do not yet know Him in the hope that they will respond to Jesus’ love.  That may cause us to share in the very rejoicing in heaven over every person who repents and finds new life in Christ’s love (Luke 15:7).

The sorrow that leads to life

Because I have had some awful experiences of anxiety I actually find it hard to read of times in the Bible when people felt great anxiety over their sin which led them to reach out for life (e.g. Acts 16:28-29).  I don’t enjoy reading of times of revival when people came under great conviction of their sin and trembled before God.

Yet such sorrow is God’s pathway to joy.  Not just at the beginning of the Christian life but throughout the Christian life.   The apostle Paul explained to the Corinthians that godly sorrow leads to repentance, and this repentance leaves no room for regret (2 Cor. 7:10).  Such sorrow is to bring us to a place where we can experience the happiness of knowing that we are forgiven (Psalms 32:1).

There is something wrong though if our grief over sin remains.  Remember that we are told that repentance should leave no room for regret.  If we bring our guilt to God, even when the struggle with temptation may still be a hard battle, and accept His forgiveness then it does not honour God to go on wallowing in shame.  Such shame may in fact be a sign that we are proud and unwilling to take God at His word.  We might not understand how we could have done such a thing, yet but for the restraining grace of God we might actually have done far worse.  It does not please Him to see a forgiven people not enjoying His kindness.

The growth that comes through pain

I was helped by reading how pursuing maturity can change the way we view our sorrows.  Dora looked to me with exasperation and asked, ‘but why doesn’t God just give us what we want?’  However, when do we grow most.  Most people would say that the matured most when times were difficult.  They had to lean of Jesus more.  They realised that many of the things they built their life on were shallow.

We are actually told that Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered (Heb. 5:8).  If suffering was essential for His maturing, how important it must be for ours too.  A friend told me that her favourite verses of the Bible are where we are told that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope, which does not disappoint us (Rom. 5:3-4).

James wrote something very similar.  He told us to consider it pure when you face trials of many kinds, for the testing of our faith produces perseverance which will leave us mature and complete (James 1:2-4).  Such verses need to be handled with care.  I remember preaching from this opening chapter of James and looking down at my friend Joy who had lost her father just a few weeks before.  I am sure these were truths that were hard to feel at that moment.

Let sorrow make us compassionate

I remember one of my early experiences of extreme anxiety.  I was a student in Dublin.  I was too distressed to sleep and went for a walk in the centre of the city.  There I saw a young man whose bed was in the doorway of a shop.  My heart went out to him in a way that it had not done so for people in his situation before.  I felt something of his despair.  I resolved that if I could get myself together I would work to help people like him.  Pain can increase our empathy.

This truth is underlined in the opening chapter of 2 Corinthians.  There the apostle Paul writes of the God who comforts us in our distress so that we can comfort others with the comfort we have received from God (2 Cor. 1:4).  Often the most caring, understanding and gentle people you will meet are those who have walked in the paths of suffering. 

But there is a temptation that accompanies our pain.  Suffering presents us with a trial.  Sadly, there are times when we respond to our suffering with resentment and jealousy towards those whose lives seem better than ours.  If we are not careful suffering can make us bitter and harsh.  Some of the hardest people we will meet will be those whose suffering hardened them.

God made humankind for nothing but pleasure

So, was Jonathan Edwards right to claim that God made man for nothing but happiness?  Yes, but.  God wants us to find our joy in Him (Neh. 8:10).  But this joy does not mean that we are immune from suffering.  In fact, there is supposed to be a happiness, or we might say a joy, in knowing that God can use our suffering to make us more like Jesus.  Pursue happiness for its own sake and you will be disappointed.  Pursue maturity and we may find that we get that we will experience true joy. 

The sufferings of this life are not meant to be experienced on their own.  So, next week we will look at the happiness that is found in community.  But before that, let’s pray.

‘Father, help me, because I am addicted to comfort and ease.  I don’t want to go down and road that leads to suffering.  Help me desire to be made more like Jesus, even though that might involve the experience of pain.  Help me trust you, even when I don’t understand what I am going through.  Help me know your presence when I am tempted to feel you have abandoned me.  Please let the troubles and trials I face make me gentle and compassionate, and not hard and resentful.  That people would see that you are faithful even when life is dark.  Amen.’

 

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.