The promise of happiness

I am not always a happy person. Sometimes I am angry or sad. And according to my husband, those are really the only three emotions possible. (And I just let him believe it because who really has time to explain to the men the complicated colors of a woman's heart?)

For years, I thought it was my husband's job to make me happy. I mean, that's what marriage is all about, right?

Note: If you really believe that it's your husband's (or wife's) job to make you happy, you've got big problems. Get some help. Professional help.

When I realized that no man was going to be able to fill the God-shaped hole inside me, I began pursuing God more relentlessly because I then knew that it's God's job to make me happy.

Yeah, right.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say ANYTHING about God promising us happiness. As a matter of fact, any time there's a word that might be translated "happy", it is accompanied by things we think of as miserable, like "Happy are the poor in spirit..." or "Happy are those who mourn..." (Mt. 5)

I often think that God has a responsibility to answer my prayers. And I think that just because I ask for something, He should make it happen. And I forget that he's not a genie, there to cater to my every whim. I think that just because I pray fervently and ask in a "spiritual" way, I can believe that He will deliver.

I'm not saying that He doesn't answer prayer. I think He absolutely does. And I think He's longing to give us our heart's desire. But when we ask the Lord to give us our heart's desire, we'd better make sure we've examined our hearts and found them to be turned toward Him.

Yesterday at OHC, Randy spoke from James 4. This particular verse caught my attention: "You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

Ouch.

Maybe one of the reasons God doesn't answer some of my prayers is because I'm asking with "wrong motives". And maybe the discomfort that comes from some of those unanswered prayers is God's way of molding me.

If there is a single theme that God has been screaming at me for the past year, it is this: "I've promised to make you HOLY, not HAPPY."

Now that doesn't mean that He wants me to be miserable. It just means that He doesn't promise that I'll feel at ease and "happy" all the time down here on earth. After all, I am not made for this earth. My citizenship is in heaven. Why should I love it here? (More on my crazy obsession with heaven later.)

So while I generally wear a smile and enjoy my daily life, I am beginning to quell that constant need for happiness.

I'm finally coming to believe that holy WITH Him is way better than happy without Him.