Is Happiness Really the Goal?
In writing about the inauguration of President Bush, and the way even the most die-hard Democrats have not carried through on their resolution to emigrate to Canada in the event of a Bush victory, NY Times Op-Ed Contributor Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, analyzed the fact that "human beings have a remarkable ability to manufacture happiness." His article, published on Jan. 20, and entitled "Four More Years of Happiness", deals with examples of how we tend to look for the silver linings in unfortunate circumstances, and end up discovering enough positive factors to satisfy our need to be "happy".
The point in context is that most everyone gets back into the routine of life, even if the "wrong person" won, but "of course not everyone will be happy today, because not everyone has this talent for reasoning his way to happiness....Many of the heroes and redeemers we most admire were unhappy people who found it impossible to change how they felt about the world - which left them no choice but to change the world itself."
I thought about Jesus, THE Redeemer. I don't recall any instance of His being described as "happy" in the gospels. He rejoiced, yes, but was He happy in the sense most of us think of happiness? He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief; He wept...more than once; His soul was troubled; He had compassion on the multitudes that were lost and had no shepherd. In 2 Cor. 12:10, Paul wrote that he "took pleasure...in distresses" for Christ's sake.
"Rejoice in the Lord always" but "weep with them that weep." "Blessed are they that mourn..." and we cannot help but mourn with them. In our church at the moment, there are any number of cases that are distressing to the members. How can we not be distressed, too? Volodya, a Ukrainian brother, without work since August; Izaías, a Brazilian brother who had saved his money and planned to return to Brazil to see his wife, who went back in February---but the man who took Izaias's money for the ticket pocketed it and never arranged a plane ticket. Result: Izaias has no money, no job, and no ticket. The economic downturn is putting pressure on several church families...there's no work, or there's work and no pay. Every day they sink a bit further into the quicksand of debt, and there's no relief in sight. Jackie has been ill since last March and for a while was on the brink of death, but doctors have never discovered her problem, despite innumerable tests. She's better, but not cured. So the church comes together and prays, and waits, and continues to pray.
In concluding his article, Daniel Gilbert emphasizes the point that it is the unhappy people who take action to change the world, and writes, "Perhaps over the next four years we would all be wise to suppress our natural talent for happiness and strive instead to be truly, deeply distressed." He has a point, and to me, that distress is the starting point of salvation and conversion, the beginning of revival in God's people. Jesus told us not to worry, but He didn't say "Don't worry, be happy."
The point in context is that most everyone gets back into the routine of life, even if the "wrong person" won, but "of course not everyone will be happy today, because not everyone has this talent for reasoning his way to happiness....Many of the heroes and redeemers we most admire were unhappy people who found it impossible to change how they felt about the world - which left them no choice but to change the world itself."
I thought about Jesus, THE Redeemer. I don't recall any instance of His being described as "happy" in the gospels. He rejoiced, yes, but was He happy in the sense most of us think of happiness? He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief; He wept...more than once; His soul was troubled; He had compassion on the multitudes that were lost and had no shepherd. In 2 Cor. 12:10, Paul wrote that he "took pleasure...in distresses" for Christ's sake.
"Rejoice in the Lord always" but "weep with them that weep." "Blessed are they that mourn..." and we cannot help but mourn with them. In our church at the moment, there are any number of cases that are distressing to the members. How can we not be distressed, too? Volodya, a Ukrainian brother, without work since August; Izaías, a Brazilian brother who had saved his money and planned to return to Brazil to see his wife, who went back in February---but the man who took Izaias's money for the ticket pocketed it and never arranged a plane ticket. Result: Izaias has no money, no job, and no ticket. The economic downturn is putting pressure on several church families...there's no work, or there's work and no pay. Every day they sink a bit further into the quicksand of debt, and there's no relief in sight. Jackie has been ill since last March and for a while was on the brink of death, but doctors have never discovered her problem, despite innumerable tests. She's better, but not cured. So the church comes together and prays, and waits, and continues to pray.
In concluding his article, Daniel Gilbert emphasizes the point that it is the unhappy people who take action to change the world, and writes, "Perhaps over the next four years we would all be wise to suppress our natural talent for happiness and strive instead to be truly, deeply distressed." He has a point, and to me, that distress is the starting point of salvation and conversion, the beginning of revival in God's people. Jesus told us not to worry, but He didn't say "Don't worry, be happy."
posted by EP | 8:22 PM | Permalink
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