Psych and Theo Podcast
Ep. 3 - Does God Really Want YOU to Be Happy?
Are you chasing fleeting moments of happiness or seeking a deeper, lasting joy? Tim and I tackle this essential question in a riveting discussion that intertwines faith, culture, and mental health. We promise, this is an episode that will challenge your assumptions about happiness and offer transformative insights into the joy that scripture promises. As we journey through the cultural obsession with immediate satisfaction, we contrast it with the enduring contentment found in aligning with God's will. We offer a fresh perspective on how to discern divine direction and how true joy often arises from trials and tribulations, rather than in spite of them.
Buckle up for an honest exploration of the complex relationship between holiness, happiness, and humanity's search for meaning. You'll hear us unpack how wisdom from Proverbs can lead to a flourishing life and why the pursuit of material success might leave you unfulfilled. We delve into the nuances of individual paths to joy and the significance of relationships and service to others. Through personal anecdotes and scriptural examples, we uncover the unexpected sources of happiness and the role of suffering in shaping a contented heart.
In an era where the gospel of prosperity often confuses wealth for wellbeing, we bring the conversation back to the core of Christian faith—trust in the goodness of God. We examine how joy transcends our earthly circumstances, embodying a steadfast belief in God's plans, even amidst life's storms. By unpacking the biblical story of Job and the essence of sanctification, we reveal how the pursuit of a holy life, aligned with God's will, inevitably leads to a profound sense of peace and a happiness that surpasses understanding. Join us and discover the transformative power of joy in the life of a believer.
Are you chasing fleeting moments of happiness or seeking a deeper, lasting joy? Tim and I tackle this essential question in a riveting discussion that intertwines faith, culture, and mental health. We promise, this is an episode that will challenge your assumptions about happiness and offer transformative insights into the joy that scripture promises. As we journey through the cultural obsession with immediate satisfaction, we contrast it with the enduring contentment found in aligning with God's will. We offer a fresh perspective on how to discern divine direction and how true joy often arises from trials and tribulations, rather than in spite of them.
Buckle up for an honest exploration of the complex relationship between holiness, happiness, and humanity's search for meaning. You'll hear us unpack how wisdom from Proverbs can lead to a flourishing life and why the pursuit of material success might leave you unfulfilled. We delve into the nuances of individual paths to joy and the significance of relationships and service to others. Through personal anecdotes and scriptural examples, we uncover the unexpected sources of happiness and the role of suffering in shaping a contented heart.
In an era where the gospel of prosperity often confuses wealth for wellbeing, we bring the conversation back to the core of Christian faith—trust in the goodness of God. We examine how joy transcends our earthly circumstances, embodying a steadfast belief in God's plans, even amidst life's storms. By unpacking the biblical story of Job and the essence of sanctification, we reveal how the pursuit of a holy life, aligned with God's will, inevitably leads to a profound sense of peace and a happiness that surpasses understanding. Join us and discover the transformative power of joy in the life of a believer.
Hi everyone, welcome to the Psychintheo Podcast, a podcast that tackles issues regarding church and pop culture, mental health and all things Bible related. I'm Sam, I'm Tim and we are tackling another big topic here, and it's this topic came up because we try to look at culture and we try to say, well, what's the culture teaching? Because it's also affecting how Christians live their lives or what they start to believe about themselves or about other people, about God, and one of the big ones that we were thinking about was there's a I don't even want to call it a trend. I mean this has been since as long as I could remember this. Does God want us to be happy? Because the culture says do what makes you happy. You should be happy, you should do what makes you happy.
Speaker 1:But then, as we look at scripture, I'm trying to think of a person in the Old Testament and in the New Testament that was just happy. We hear the word joy and we see joy, but happy or happiness. Maybe it's because of how the culture has defined that today. That maybe that's why we're having this conversation. But yeah, the question that we're going to try to answer today is does God want Christians to be happy? So we're going to do our best to try to tackle this question. If you are in this position where you believe this, that God wants you to be happy, we're going to see. If that's the case by the end of this episode. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 3:Yeah, All right, so you might put this down, this file, this down as a sub series cultural myth busters maybe.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are going to tackle a lot of cultural myths because, again, I mean think about what. Do you know what the average is? And I forget the number, I don't remember what the percentage of people who Christians, how much they read their Bible, and I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Barna just did a few studies on worldview. How many American Christians have a biblical worldview? They probably asked a question like that.
Speaker 1:Yes, and.
Speaker 3:I don't remember what the statistic was.
Speaker 1:Barna. Yeah, barna research it's a good. Barnacom is a good resource to have as we talk about all of these data points, but it was a ridiculously low number. How many Christians have read the entire Bible? And then how many Christians read their Bible daily, weekly, and so on. It was very, very low, which means that if you're not allowing that to inform your biblical worldview, then something else is going to inform how you view concepts such as it's like happiness.
Speaker 1:So we have music, we have television, we have friends, other people who just maybe people that we idolize or look up to right. All of these things are influencing how we think, and one of the common themes is going to be you should be happy or do what makes you happy. So let's take a look at if God actually wants us to be happy. So, tim, let me kick it off to you to see what your thoughts are, because obviously this is a question that people may naturally say well, yeah, god wants me to be happy. Why wouldn't he want me to be happy? He's good, he should want me.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay, so let's start this off. Let me say this With probably all of the cultural myths that we will tackle they are true in one sense and not true in another.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 3:That's good and that is an important nuance, and I know our today's age. We don't like to talk about nuance, but it's important because if you just think in very simplistic terms, then you're oftentimes going to get confused. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So does God want us to be happy. As I was preparing for this show, I started sort of free flowing my writing down thoughts, a stream of consciousness, what I thought, the very first thing I wrote, was this one is actually a true statement God wants us to be happy. God does want us to be happy. That much is true. He doesn't want us to be unhappy.
Speaker 3:How we think of that. He doesn't want us to be. So let's think about in a negative first Does God want us to be miserable? Does God want us to be sad, depressed, angry, dissatisfied, lonely, hopeless? The answer to that is no. God doesn't want us to be any of those things. So in one sense, if we think of happiness as sort of the opposite end of that, it seems like okay, god in some sense does want us to be happy. And what way?
Speaker 3:And what kind, and the Christian vernacular typically makes this distinction between joy and happiness, and you might maybe have some thoughts on that, I think. In some conversations I think that distinction is helpful. In others it's like well, joy is happiness in the sense of how we would talk about it, the culture, let's say, when they talk about happiness, they might confuse that to be sort of a feeling of elation or this feeling of exuberance, some sort of like oh I'm happy, like a surprise birthday party versus a deep kind of abiding peace.
Speaker 3:So it really depends on what people mean. But does God want us to be happy? Yeah, in a sense, but no, well, not no like. But there are forms of happiness that are biblical and forms that are not.
Speaker 1:Right Because people get happiness from a bunch of different things, and sometimes the things that make us happy actually contradict what God's word might say yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay. So we might say there are forms of happiness that conform to the will of God and others that don't. Yeah, and then how do we discern the will of God? Well, we would say you have to discern that through, first, through the scriptures. What is his general will for us? What is his moral? Will. But then through prayer and fasting and meditation and counseling, like in a general sense with pastors and church people, what might be God's specific will for your life. We don't have to get into that.
Speaker 1:That's maybe another episode of how to discern the will of God.
Speaker 3:But so there are forms of happiness that conform to that and others that don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that. That you made that distinction, because that is so true. Like, yeah, depending on how we define happiness is going to determine what that looks like. So, if we define happiness from a cultural perspective, we're going to run into a number of different things, because people really I mean the push of the culture is that you define your own happiness Right. So if marrying someone of the same sex makes you happy, then yeah, if that makes you happy, do that Right. That can.
Speaker 1:Again, these are all hot topics that we'll be tackling, but that's just one example. Another example could be what we just talked about in our first episode, which was well, if you being or defining yourself as one of the opposite gender or sex, if that makes you happy, then go ahead and do that, right. So does God want us to be happy? And they will use this argument Well, if God wants me to be happy, then this makes me happy, so I should be able to do this. I think that's kind of what you were alluding to is that there are ways in which we can. We need to conform our happiness to God's will for our lives, and when I thought about this question, the first thing I started to think about is in scripture. Can I say that these people were happy and in my head I was thinking to myself well, that wasn't something that would make me happy and it doesn't look like they were happy.
Speaker 1:So, for example, moses he was away for a number of years and then was told by God to go back to bring his people out of Egypt. Right, I don't know if he was happy about that, but he was obedient. Your as God continued to talk to him. Right, he was obedient to the call and he was faithful in his call, and he did it for years and years. But was he happy?
Speaker 1:So those are the questions that came up to me, came up in my mind when they got stuck at the Red Sea. Were they happy about that? No, there's a lot of things that happened that were inconveniencing people, but the goal behind all of that was for them to trust God more. I will take care of you, I will save you from this. So that's where my mind went and, obviously, having the background that you have, feel free to correct me if I miss anything. But yeah, that's where my mind went is. I don't know if that's ultimately God's goal, and I think later on, I have the idea of holiness. Holiness is God conforming us into the image of Christ. That's what he wants for us and that can lead to happiness, and it can lead to holiness, and it can lead to better relationships and all of that.
Speaker 3:So it's actually a perfect segue to something I was going to say. And we didn't have this plan we didn't plan that?
Speaker 3:No, we didn't, definitely not. There's no one with a cue card saying transition to this. So you mentioned holiness. Yeah, okay, I'd love to get your take on some of the guilt manipulation I think takes place in the church, so maybe I'll sit that can down on the table and I'll let you open it if we want. There is an unhelpful slogan. I think it's a really unhelpful slogan that's pervasive within evangelical Christianity and it's the slogan and I know we've all heard it in time and true God doesn't want you to be happy, god wants you to be holy. Thank you, and again, in one sense, yes, and another sense are you sure those two things are in contradiction to one another. So this is why I think that statement. Have you ever heard that? I?
Speaker 1:have.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, and I'm sure our audience we've all heard that God doesn't want you to be happy, wants you to be holy. Okay, like, yeah, what you said about God's ultimate goal for us is holiness, and we can get, yeah, like Romans 8, 28,. God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. And then Romans 8, 29, he's doing this so that we will be conformed to the image of his son. So the ultimate goal is that holiness that takes place, the sanctification that occurs throughout our whole life.
Speaker 3:Okay, but here's why the phrase God doesn't want you to be happy, wants you to be holy is because that, I think why that's unhelpful is that it pits holiness and happiness against each other and it applies that to be holy means to be unhappy, or that God only cares about holiness and not about happiness. So I think that slogan is a bad response to a cultural myth about I must be happy all the time, or my happiness is ultimate, whereas holiness is ultimate. So sometimes I cringe a little bit on the inside when I hear that response from Christians, and it's a well-meaning response. But I think it's unhelpful because it's what God promises to us is that we would have peace, enjoy if we do the things that he tells us to do in His word.
Speaker 3:Philippians 4, you think on these things. Paul goes to this list of virtues. You think on these things, then the God of peace will be with you. He says that in Philippians 4, 8, 9. So there's prescriptions in the scriptures for how to have peace, enjoy things like that. So holiness and happiness are not opposed to one another.
Speaker 1:I love that distinction. That's good. That's very good too, yeah. So now thinking about that, so holiness and happiness not being against each other, but maybe even one being the fruit of the other, which is kind of the point I was trying to make earlier about if you're holy and you're pursuing holiness, that could lead to happiness, because that helps you. I guess why wisdom is.
Speaker 1:Another concept that I wanted to add here is that when you live in a wise manner we see this in Proverbs, we see a number of verses also in Psalms to talk about wisdom and walking wisely and so on. Like you avoid so many different problems by living wisely, and in living wisely, you can be happy because you're avoiding more problems or doing things in a different way. The Bible talks in Proverbs I wanna say it's six or seven, I'm gonna talk about being lazy so if you're working hard, you avoid the effects of well, if I'm not working hard, I'm losing out on some other things. So there's these aspects and principles that we learned. So the happiness can be a fruit of living a holy life, but it's not necessarily.
Speaker 1:Like you said, you have to be able to pose each other, because some people like to go to theme parks, some people like to go to the movies, some people like to play sports. I'd rather play a sport than go to a theme park or go to watch a movie. Right, that's just me. So is that happiness that I get from playing the sport wrong? And I think that's where people start to get into some.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I gray areas, but yeah, if something makes you happy, is it contradicted or does it go against anything that the Bible teaches or that God's word says?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, and I think we all kind of intuitively understand this as Christians, where we shouldn't elevate things above God. That's sort of the basic. Everyone kind of knows that as a Christian, yeah, god, we worship God and we don't worship things. We don't have idols. Okay, everyone knows you shouldn't have idols, shouldn't worship idols. What I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding is when things become idols or when something has become an idol or when it hasn't.
Speaker 3:So sometimes I'm sort of on this, doing a lot of thinking about where Christians might, they can make idols in their lives, but then they also sometimes they might guilt themselves and think, oh, have I made this an idol in my life? Well, if you have to ask that question, it's probably not an idol in your life, you know, or at least at that moment it's no longer an idol.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have good self-awareness if you're asking the question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're asking the question, then it's the Holy Spirit's definitely helping you in that sense. But we can sometimes guilt ourselves into thinking things that scripture says that's okay. You know. It's okay to enjoy a game of golf I don't like golf, you know a lot of guys do okay or a theme park or a movie or whatever. Those small things in life or those joys in life are great, you know, they're fine to enjoy. When we I think you mentioned Moses and I think we can get into this a little bit with going through trials and having I think you mentioned call at some point, the call in God put on his life, where when we go through those callings, it oftentimes is a very long struggle, like that story, let's say, involves a lot of struggle. I think when we elevate the nice things in life and we say, well, I wanna be happy and happiness means that I have a certain material net worth, I can enjoy certain material things, I have the picture-esque family, I have a great job, whatever.
Speaker 3:If you were to make a list of all the things that you think if I had these things I would have repose in my life, you could just paint a portrait of my life, and it would just be so peaceful and happy you know, and I think if we think, once I get to that point, that's happiness, that should be a warning sign to us. That's when we are making material things. The ultimate goal or destination and in fact, our mission in life is to get to that point. And I think what we will find, and what many people find, is when they actually reach that point, there's a gaping hole. It doesn't actually feel like it should or was like we think it should.
Speaker 3:There's a cultural commentator by the name of Dennis Prager, famous for the PragerU website, now Dennis Prager. He's a conservative Jew and so he's not a Christian, but he's informed about at least the Old Testament, informed about Christianity. But I think he has this really helpful thing. I remember seeing this on a video he did a few years ago about happiness itself.
Speaker 3:He said that most people have in their mind images of the future that they think. Once that image becomes a reality, I will be happy, sort of like what I just described to you. And he says well, but when you actually get there, if you get there, if you could actually bring that image into reality, you'll find that it doesn't actually feel like you thought it would feel. And his solution now I think this is half right his solution is, he said take those images in your mind and sort of get rid of them. Like, take the image and sort of put it into the fireplace and burn it up and just recognize that that's not actually where happiness is.
Speaker 3:You can find happiness right in front of you. I think it's half right, but the other half.
Speaker 3:Well. So where he's wrong, well, he's not a Christian. So we would frame happiness in the sense of finding God's will for your life and submission to Christ. Obviously, he's going to disagree with that, but I think in another sense that and I would love to hear your take on this psychological aspect of this is that we're purpose. We're purposeful human beings and we need goals to pursue in order to feel like we have meaning in life. And that's another. That's where this happiness thing goes, goes off the rails. A lot of times people think, well, once I reach the destination of some material, material set of possessions, that I'll just be happy, and that's not how we're made. No, because you get bored really quick.
Speaker 1:Very quick yeah.
Speaker 3:And you're like I need something else, I need something to drive me, and so you need a goal to pursue, and if you're pursuing material things, it's not only going to lead you to a bad destination, but it's going to lead you to pursue that in a way that is probably not healthy for you either. Yeah. So I would say you still need goals, you still need those images, but the images need to be the right kind of things to pursue.
Speaker 1:There's two parts to this happiness factor that we're discussing. One of them is the feeling of happiness. So how do I feel when I'm happy? So there's this aspect. So what does it feel like for you when you're happy? Oh, I'm super talkative, I'm so excited, I'm this, I'm that. Not everyone expresses happiness that way. It's like you have a quiet guy over here reading a book and you say, hey, are you happy? He doesn't look happy, yeah, I'm happy.
Speaker 1:Because they are reflecting, they're thinking about you know, whatever brings them to your point meaning. So meaning and purpose. Then that's how God created us, right To, kind of. He gave us meaning and purpose right when he created Adam and Eve. Here's your task, here's what you do, here's your relationship with me, right? So we have relationships.
Speaker 1:If you look at it from a timeline, what every person at the end of their life and not necessarily when they're going to die, but after 55, 60 years. So what are the things that they look back on? They started looking back at everything that they've done, and the accomplishments don't mean as much as the relationships that they built. So they'll start thinking about their kids, they'll start thinking about their own family members. Those are the relationships that matter. Oh, what you'll hear often. I did one summer at the at a hospital, working with some of the elderly there, and one of the things that you always hear was I should have been a better father, I could have been a better. This. No one really talks about their work unless you're asking them directly about it, but you do see a lot of referencing to relationships, and that's really when you're thinking about happiness. Oftentimes, the way that it's focused on today is about my happiness, me being happy. But part of us being happy is also what are we doing for others, and this is where the model of Christianity comes into play. This is a war that we have today. Is that I need to do stuff for me, me first, not for others? Right, that's the mentality. But and feel free to add to this as well where the Bible says to think of others higher than ourselves, right, I think it's in Philippians one or esteem others more than yourself. That doesn't mean don't esteem yourself. That doesn't mean don't love yourself or don't care about yourself. It means look at life as a way where I'm going to serve others and esteem others more, because it helps us focus on a bigger mission of ministering to others and reflecting the love of Christ to others. So when we talk about meaning and happiness is one question that would ask our audience and for myself often, is what am I able to give to others from what God has poured into me? What can I also give to others?
Speaker 1:I did want to read this verse real quick, I think in Corinthians one. I was going to go KJV, but this is where I got this concept when I thought about counseling, I think about psychology and so on, but basically I said Corinthians one, verses three to seven, says blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we received. Ourselves are comforted by God, for as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. So it's this idea of I'm suffering and there's purpose behind it Romans 8 28, but ultimately it's to provide comfort for those other people or others who are also afflicted.
Speaker 1:Verse six if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you isn't shaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. So, again, this idea of there's meaning behind what I'm going through and, ultimately, the comfort that I receive from God, I can then demonstrate that to you as my brother and sister in Christ. So when we think about happiness, it can't be viewed in a selfish perspective and it just makes me happy and as a father, you know, as a parent, like you look at your kids, like it makes you happy that they're happy because you've provided that for them. I think it's the same thing as we're discussing earlier, that God, when he wants us, when we're doing his will, that makes him happy and maybe, as we conform to his will, that is what brings us ultimate happiness and joy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, okay yeah. So the idea that happiness can come through suffering sounds really, might sound really strange to a lot of people, but it's actually not that strange, even from a, let's say, non-christian perspective. We would frame it in a Christian light. But so Jordan Peterson has some good material on this, but not just him. There was a I'm blanking on it now. I thought of it as you were talking. There was a he again. Forgive me for paraphrasing this and blanking on it. I should have had in my notes, but there was a man who he either did studied Holocaust survivors or he was actually a witness to it inside the camps, and his thesis, or what he noted, is that those who, those who were able to sort of persevere inside the camps and heal from it later, were those who saw purpose in it. Now, I can't, you might be thinking of the guy's name. I'm going to look it up afterward. I'm like, ah, that was it. I was right on the tip of my tongue, it's just gaping?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just gaping, but I know what you're really looking for. Yeah, and Jordan Peterson talks about this a lot. It's human beings can endure suffering. We can endure lots of hard things, traumas that hit our lives, if we recognize a purpose behind it, and it's that purpose that is the root of peace and joy and happiness. It's how we can see meaning in our lives, and so, at the, at a very deep root, human beings have to understand their lives as stories, and they now I'm getting into your realm.
Speaker 3:So maybe you're like they want to see their lives as stories and they want to make sense of that story. But so many people go wrong by thinking well, the point of my story is to go from rags to riches, or when I get to the riches chapter of my life, that's, that's happily ever after. That's the fairy tale. It's a misnomer. It will lead us down a path where you get there and you're like nope this isn't it.
Speaker 3:I made a wrong turn somewhere and I like what you said about studies have shown about older people who, when they reflect upon their lives, they realize their accomplishments aren't what mattered to them later in life.
Speaker 3:It was the relationships that they built or didn't build along the way. So, yeah, you know, one of the this is something just I've read in my own studies one of the ways to help people out of depression is to get them to do some sort of service for other people, among other things, like built patterns in their life and all that. Yeah, doing service for other people, sacrificing for other people, I think we would tie that, we would obviously tie that to a spiritual realm. I appreciate you. You read from 1st Corinthians that when the point of when we go through suffering, the point is so that we can comfort others and and help, hopefully, provide meaning for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah in some way, just as we, in some small sense, have Developed meaning from that through the eyes of God, yeah, and the suffering that we now. That doesn't mean we'll have those answers right away. And there's there's some things that will happen in our lives that we won't know the answer to until we get to the end I think of. We couldn't talk about this subject of happiness without talking about Job the book of Job and.
Speaker 3:Again, this is another guilt manipulation that a lot of Christians you know trick themselves and others into is like, well, if you're unhappy, well, just a good job. Well, wait a minute. Like, yeah, I'm a, I'm allowed to ask questions, you know, yeah. So my point is that to bring up job is sort of a billy club to beat people over the head and say, well, you should be happy because you know, look at Job. The Point is that if you understand the story of Job, it's not. It is a story about Job Persevering through suffering and then God rewarding him on the back end with another More children than he lost and more wealth than he lost, but that's, that's not the the major point of the book.
Speaker 3:If we think that's the major point of the book, then we might be waiting for, like a jackpot lottery ticket. It's a good at the end of life and that's it's not really the point. The point is it's a contest, it's whether it's it's God's assessment of Job true or not.
Speaker 3:The opening chapters Paint this picture of this Angelic being named the Satan, which may be Satan, it may be another being just called the Satan, which means this the accuser so it may not be Satan himself, maybe an angelic being that's supposed to go around Robbing human beings for their moral character, which is a kind of a strange concept, like my hope, I've got a sign an angel to do that, maybe right so. But it opens up with this conversation where God says what have you been doing? And this Satan character Says I've been going to and fro on the earth. And the implication is I'm an accuser, so I'm going to and fro to see who I can accuse. And then God says well, have you considered my servant Job?
Speaker 3:And then then begins this contest. Well, that the Satan says well, the only reason he worships you is because you give him everything. And that's sort of like this pin drop in the room with God and all of his angels is like are you impugning, are you questioning God's assessment of Job? Oh, okay. And then it's a contest of whether or not Job considers God worthy or not, whether he continues to worship God or not. Mm-hmm, so that's what's going on in the background. The where am I going with all this is that it's Job is never told. That's what's happening. Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 3:Job goes through this long ordeal where even his friends are like well, you know, job, you probably send, so you probably confess whatever sin you had, you know, and he's like man with friends like these who needs anything, okay, and then he Job gets to the end and he starts questioning. He's like he's just question God, why is this happening to me? And he this really long, you know, a dialogue happens between God and Job finally got answers. At the end he's like sit down, it's like I'm gonna answer you, like a man, you know, like you gotta grace yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah and God starts asking all these rhetorical questions about like were you there when I made the earth? Were you there when I formed the seas and the creatures and all these things. But Job is God never tells. Job like this is a I'm trying to get you to see me is as the ultimate value mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:He doesn't tell him that, but that's, that's what's happening and where am I going with all this? We may not have all the answers in life. There's there's questions that we're gonna have in life, like what did that mean when that happened to me as a child? What did that mean when my marriage fell apart? What did it mean when I got cancer? What did all these things that, all these bad things that can happen to us, what did that mean for me? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Well, you may get the answer to that in this life, but you may not. And the point is not to get the answer right now, but to to understand, but to see the meaning in it that God is in. God is if you're a Christ follower and you're following the Lord and you're trying to live the way that he wants you to live. Eventually, those answers will come mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:It may not come in this life, but you don't always know what's happening. You don't know the grand narrative. Sometimes it's happening behind the scenes and we need to trust the Lord, and those situations and I think that is where that's where Peace can come in is like I don't. If I must have the answer right now and I can't get that answer, I'm going to be really, really unhappy. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's not to say you shouldn't pursue answers, but just recognize that I May not have the answer, but I'm gonna trust the Lord with that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there's a long, long answer, but no, brother, that was, that was so good and a blessing. I think you know, as people could hear, that that was, that was good background. Like I never side frame that way, how you present the job with that conversation between God and how Job just completely unaware of it but we. Why it's important is because we live in a culture that wants answers now and if we don't give me an answer now, that means, lord, you're not being good or you don't want me to be happy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's the opposite. So like now.
Speaker 1:It's now. You don't want me to be happy because you're allowing these things to happen in my life. Yeah, and it's this. You know, one of the signs of Maturity and I'll always remember this because I'm doing this out with the boys but one of the signs of maturity is they look at people who make good decisions. They said one of the key factors delayed gratification. If you can delay gratification, you work hard for this and you delay what you want later on, then that is a good sign of maturity, because you're telling yourself, mm-hmm, I can wait for what I'm working for. Yeah, now, how does this apply to Christian? I house apply to to our faith? Is that oftentimes we demand God to give us answers, that if and if he gives us at the answer that we're gonna be happy, but what we find is that we're not happy. We have more questions right now. I want to know more. Well, why did that happen?
Speaker 1:like why, yeah, why? Why? Why the details more and more? Like we just want more and more and we think that in pursuing that, that that will eventually make us content or happy with our situation, mm-hmm. But it actually sometimes may make it worse and may make us see question God's character even more, because work, he's not giving us the answers that we want, or we think it's something and this is something that people will say, like they'll say Well, I was sure that God said this, so I went with. It didn't work out, so we got wrong. Or did you do what you want? And people don't like to face that like I did what I wanted, I didn't follow. Or it's just life, sometimes things happen right. So you, in your walk with God, were you pursuing him, were you becoming more like him throughout this process? And To our point earlier about holiness, that's essentially what he's pursuing. But again, holiness can lead to happiness, or holiness and happiness are not against each other.
Speaker 1:And you can often work together or one comes after the other. And why is this important? Because I think in churches today, I think and you've seen this, I'm sure that even churches are preaching that you should be happy, the prosperity gospel in the sense right that, yeah, prosperity approach and Because it's happening in the churches, I Think that's also giving us that side of. You should expect this. Like you're sick, you should expect to be healed. You should expect to have money by the end of all of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all of it's very insidious because they don't twist, they will twist scripture Usually from the Old Testament. Yeah, I like to say that false teachers and false teaching, they do this tactic of weaving almost like a basket weaving, where they weave Truth and falsehood together into a mesh and and it looks.
Speaker 3:It looks convincing, but some of the threads are lies and some of them are true, and that's why it's. It's deceiving, because you're like, oh well, well, that one, that statement is true, so, and that one's true, so, maybe this one here is true. Yeah, it's a little thing. They'll say things like well, god owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Wouldn't he want you to own some of them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, well, god does own the cattle, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:Another one is like I remember there was a Very famous televangelist who was trying to. This news agency was doing a story on him and they were questioning him about why he needed a private jet. Oh yeah, and he used that line does you won't God? You know God owned the cattle on a thousand hills. You know like well, but Jesus was poor. Jesus didn't own anything is like well, but he owned that too. You know he like, oh, okay, like so they just, they just twist the scriptures completely very much, so yeah, Um, yeah, there's.
Speaker 3:The equally damaging, I think, response, or at least a bad response to that is what we might call the poverty gospel, which is no. In order to be in the will of God, you must divest yourself of all wealth, live a quote-unquote radical life and Be miserable and make yourself miserable, and that's that's not justified in scripture either. I mean you. You see, in the New Testament, the believers of the New Testament were from all walks of life and economic strata. There were, a course, a lot of slaves who were Christians. There were a lot of poor people who were Christians, but then there were also a lot of middle class and business class people.
Speaker 3:If we could use those terms for the first century. There's been several studies that have been done on this in the New Testament, but essentially you know that the New Testament church had the way it operated. It needed wealthy Christians in its, in its midst, those, those Christians who were blessed with their. They had the business, successful businesses Lydia would be an example of one. Maker of fine linen and purple. Some of the wealthy Christians mentioned an axe to an axe for they. They sold, they had, they owned land. They sold some of their land and gave it to the church. They sold some of the property, gave it to the church. The Lord uses those things in people's lives. Now it doesn't say and they were happy because they were rich. Hmm, that's know that the. If you look at the picture of the New Testament church and axe, the way that they found Joy with one another was In well, the. The wealthier ones found joy in giving to those in need.
Speaker 3:But where they identified a need and they met it in the church and then ultimately, you know that the congregation itself you look at axe to. They says they had all things in common. That's not communism, but but they were continuing in prayer and the reading of the word. They continued in Serving one another, in serving one another, in caring for the poor. So there's all these performative functions that are going on in the church and that is where those Christians found their joy.
Speaker 3:Yeah and doing that. It wasn't them being poor or being rich, so but okay, I'm getting off on a tangent here. But but you mentioned the prosperity gospel preachers. Get it's pervasive in the American church.
Speaker 1:You're gonna pray? God want you to be happy.
Speaker 3:He wants you to be comfortable. So many Christians are just spectator Christians. They come to church on Sunday morning, they sit in the seat and they might stay for the whole service. They might actually leave during the altar call or something like that, just to get out to the restaurant quicker. But they are spectator Christians where they are not actually serving or they don't have. There's not a purpose For them coming to church other than just to feed. Yeah, and that's not how very consumeristic. Yeah, that's not how the Bible you. That's not the picture that the Bible lays out for Christians to be doing. So if you're in a church, you need to be involved in something. Do find your gifts and and do that, or you know, it's not just find your gifts, just get involved somewhere.
Speaker 3:And sometimes those gifts come, sometimes the passions come later on when you get involved, say, like an example might be like well, I'll get involved in the youth ministry. I've never served with the youth, I don't know what it's like and then you start doing it. You know, well, I really, I really love this, like I really love seeing young people's lives changed. And the. Lord will reward you and that service and that and that in turn brings happiness.
Speaker 1:Yeah you're happy as you're seeing other children kind of follow the same steps. It's really good. We're talking about what, what God wants, and we're talking about both happiness and holiness. When I talk about holiness, kind of become more into the image of Christ. A couple of references for that, references to sanctification, denying ourselves, developing the fruits of the spirit, being in community to live out the one in others. So we have this aspect of where we're becoming more like Christ and it the same thing.
Speaker 1:It's interesting too, because in the psych, in the psychology field, you see this impact of what it means for others to serve other people or to help others. Right, there's a feel-good sense about that. Now the the challenge, I think, is that, even even with our churches, is that if the emphasis is on me, then as a church we should probably make the emphasis about others and Hopefully we can land somewhere in the middle. Yeah, so it's like over Compensating for one over the other, right, like saying, if the, if the culture is only teaching me, me, me, then maybe we need to teach others, others, others, and hopefully we land here in the middle where I need to take care of myself.
Speaker 1:If I'm just on constant empty, all the time serving other people, I'm gonna completely burn out. I mean, physically, you start to feel it right. So physically that affects your emotions, that affects the way that you think your ability to focus right. So if you're not taking care of yourself physically and Mentally and spiritually your own time, then are you able to serve others right. And then you have the other side, where it's just all about you and you're not really Helping other people. But you feel healthy, you feel good, but you're not doing anything good for those around you. Then you know we need to bring that back to to the middle. So hopefully we were trying to find this middle spot. I think that maybe at least you know, as we're talking about this, with the culture pushing a lie, we're trying to present truth so much over here so we can land in the middle, help people, land here Right, where they're able to look at both sides and come and make a wise decision about the conversation that they're having, about these cultural issues.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the only way. I have no idea here. The only way to become holy Is to go through suffering. I'd be interested to hear your top, your thoughts on that the only way to become holy. So we're not talking about happiness now, but we have talked about that holiness can lead to happiness. Yeah so the element here is Can you be happy if you haven't suffered?
Speaker 1:Right, if I'm not even to compare it to something right if I can't compare it to another stage in my life where I was unhappy, then I can know what happiness feels like like. I remember Hearing you see my parents go through the wars.
Speaker 1:I wasn't happy, but I do remember also that there were other people who were investing in my life and and that made me happy the fact that others cared about me during that time and Invested time in me, that made me happy, because I felt like I was being cared for during a time that that was difficult. So, yeah, that made me, and then I started serving others and then that made me happy as well. So, it's almost like if we don't experience suffering, can we know what happiness actually is, or joy?
Speaker 3:Okay, it's huge questions. Yeah, yeah, no. I would say in a nutshell, there are let's think about this way there, just as we said, there's types of happiness. Well, let's think of that, in the hierarchy, there are lower forms of happiness and higher, higher or deeper depending on how you want to talk about it forms of happiness. But I think what we're trying, the myth we're trying to bust, is Is this idea that of a hedonic or hedonistic?
Speaker 3:kind of happiness happiness as material gratification, material wealth and or physical gratification in some way, that that kind of happiness is fleeting. It's not going to satisfy you and it's not what we're ultimately meant to pursue. If those things come, those are good, okay, good gifts from the Lord. Use them for his kingdom. Yeah, so we're trying to bust that one, this hedonistic, pleasure seeking form of happiness. There's a in the literature and philosophical literature on on hedonism. There's a really common Saying, and it was I can't remember which philosopher who said it, but they were pushing back against when, when he so. Hedonism is a form of Consequentialist ethics. It was formulated In the modern times, in the 1800s, by a guy named Jeremy Bentham, philosopher in the 1800s. It goes way back before him, to a guy named Epicurus, way back in the Greek, greek times. Epicurean philosophy is somebody might have heard the term Epicureanism and so, and they would say well, the ultimate Purpose in life is is the pursuit of pleasure, okay, and.
Speaker 1:And the that was it, that was your art, that they yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 3:Epicurean philosophy you, you avoid pain and you pursue pleasure. Okay now, now our culture takes that in a Different way than Epicurus would have done it Sure she was this, you know nerdy philosopher.
Speaker 3:So he's gonna talk about different kinds of pains and pleasure. But along the way I know I don't remember who said this but they said well, there's, there's different Kinds, there's different tears to happiness, there's different kinds of pleasure. Of the pleasure that a pig gets from feeding in the trough is Not, we would say, that's not the kind of pleasure that a human being should enjoy, right? And so the philosopher famously said better a better Socrates dissatisfied Than a pig satisfied. Hmm, so the pig is satisfied rolling around in the mud.
Speaker 3:But is that the kind of satisfaction that we should pursue? Is it? Is it actually better for us as human beings to be dissatisfied in our pursuit of meaning in life, then to be like a pig rolling around in the mud and having a good time? Think of it in a less philosophical way. We can't grow if we don't have pain and suffering. We can remain as children. You know there's, there's conditions that where people are incapable of kind of maturing past a certain age cognitively and they're just not able to understand certain things about life. The older and more mature you get, in, more experiences that you have, the more Pain you experience, but you are also growing as a person.
Speaker 3:You're growing in your character, or you, at least you hopefully are yeah okay, so we could remain emotional, spiritual children our whole lives if we wanted, and Enjoy the pleasures that come with that the ignorant bliss that comes with being a child. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But that is not how you God has structured physical life and that's not how the Christian life is supposed to go either. You mentioned sanctification. Sanctification is that lifelong process toward holiness and we holiness is. That process is working out of us the sinful patterns of our former nature and putting on the nature of Christ and becoming more like Christ.
Speaker 3:And that cannot happen without friction in our lives where there's a scriptural concept of pruning, god can't. He can't make you into a beautiful tree or a beautiful garden without pruning certain bad things that are in your life. He can't shape you and mold you into a vessel of honor, as Paul says to Timothy that there are in every house, there's vessels of honor and dishonor. Do your best to present yourself as a vessel of honor to be useful for the master's work.
Speaker 3:So you can't do that without friction and shaping and God carving and chiseling things out of your life and that's that's that pain that comes with sanctification.
Speaker 1:That's good, brother, that's really good. I'm trying to think of things, that that the mink is happy, but everything that's worth pursuing comes with a large dose of suffering in the process. Yeah, right, and so if we want something to make happen, if we're chasing a feeling, then we're going to be losing happiness all the time because it's a state of emotion. But if we pursue that which is greater, which is what God calls us to, and we're pursuing those things in the process, we can experience happiness. So can there be the existence of happiness and suffering in the process? I think that's where you can make this distinction of joy. So what's the difference between happiness and joy?
Speaker 1:As we get close here to close now, I think we can finish with defining what those things are. But I think one of the things and you can add to this as well, and you've already said some of these two what does God not want for Christians? So we talk about? God wants us to be happy, but what does God not want for us? Right, he doesn't want for us to live independently, out of his authority, in our lives, where we can just do whatever we want, even if it makes us happy. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1:But he doesn't want that. He doesn't want us to live independently of him. He also does not want us to be in bad company that may lead us away from the Lord. A lot of us appreciate friends and have people in our circles that maybe aren't good for us, right, and Bob talks about that bad company, cribs Good Morals and so on. So he doesn't want us to be in bad company. He doesn't want us to live in a way independently from the church, right from the body of Christ. You can't be a Christian on your own without also being part of the body, right, at least, you won't grow and we'll talk about happiness and so on.
Speaker 1:He doesn't want us to seek temporal things. So if your ultimate goal is to be happy with money, you know, the life you always wanted, and so on, or degrees, whatever the case is, those are temporal things that will be left here when we die. We talked about this doesn't want us to pursue health, wealth and prosperity and does not want us and you mentioned this to place anything above him. So if whatever makes you happy is above him, he does not want that for you, because we're placing it above him unless we place it below him. So, with those being said, do you have anything else to add to that before we define joy and happiness?
Speaker 3:Well, I was just going to make some recommendations, as we're getting to the end of the episode. So if you want to get to that point or no, no. Okay, yeah, I appreciate you saying all those things like what does God not want us to do? I think those are helpful parameters. It helps you get to like okay, god doesn't want all these things and God does want these things. So now I can kind of make sense of where I need to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, it's like it's not one and it's not a million. It's somewhere between there.
Speaker 3:Some recommendations that I would make for people. There's a book that I think every Christian should read. And no, it's okay, it's not the Bible, but it is the Bible. Okay, read the Bible. Okay, this is not the book I'm going to talk about, but John Piper is the pursuit of God. It's a really good book. I don't have it in front of me, but it's a very good book about joy. In fact, piper was famous for coining this phrase, christian hedonism, which I don't care for the phrase, but you know I didn't write a bestselling book like he did, so I'll let it slide. I'll let it slide this one, but in that book he talks about that. What Christian hedonism is is. He defines it is. It is the pursuit of the pleasure of God.
Speaker 3:That is the ultimate goal that we should have, and he goes into what that looks like in life. It's a. It's a phenomenal book. It's one of those classic books that I think will be around for generations to come. So, John Piper, the pursuit of God another helpful podcast. Maybe this is not necessarily a Christian podcast, but it's a by a guy who is a Christian. His name's Arthur Brooks. He writes for the Atlantic, I believe, currently, and he's he's had several books, and the podcast that I'm thinking of is called the art of happiness. It's an art book, so it's kind of clever, you know the art of happiness.
Speaker 3:I don't know now that did change names recently, I think to like how to build a life, but I don't know if he does every episode on that podcast. I can't. I want it to fully endorse that. But yeah, yeah, his. His other show, the art of happiness, is actually really just interesting for practical tips, yeah, of just how to think, how to think better, how to think as a healthy individual. So God does want us to be like spiritually and mentally healthy.
Speaker 3:He does want that for us, so that's a good. Arthur Brooks is a really good resource, I think, for people to do.
Speaker 1:So just two recommendations. Yeah, yeah, this just popped into my mind as you were mentioning the difference between him or being a Christian or not, or being a Christian but not the podcast, not being Christian, but it popped into my head Can non-Christians experience joy? Hmm.
Speaker 1:So so I may I wonder if that's the distinction between cause. We have a lot of, I guess, what we would describe as maybe carnal Christians, so who seek happiness in material or temporal things and because of that they say I don't have the joy of the Lord, or whatever the case is. But then you have people who are going through some difficult time and they have this joy about them, or this happiness, I guess, that we say about them. So is that what joy is? Is joy the understanding? We could define this differently, but I'm interested to hear how you would describe it.
Speaker 1:Joy is the acknowledgement that God is good, no matter what's going on in my life. That God is good, because when you're not happy, our assumption or inclination is to think that God is not good because he's allowing something unfortunate to happen in my life. Right, someone said this, I forget the name of the author or speaker, but they said when we go through suffering, we never, when we go through good times, we never questioned God's character, but when we go through bad times, we always try to question God's character. And so it's that idea of if I'm joyful, I don't question God's character, I don't like what I'm going through, I don't like how it makes me feel, but I'm not going to question God's character.
Speaker 1:Why? Because I've seen him multiple times. He present in my life and I could just trust that that's going to happen. Doesn't mean that you feel happy about the situation. Right, you're not celebrating, you know, the loss of a child or the loss of a job, or the loss of, you know, a girlfriend or a boy, for whatever the case is Like, you're not celebrating those things. But you're also, if you have joy, are not questioning God's character. So that's kind of how I would define joy as understanding that God is still good, no matter what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, can lost people experience joy? Remember that concept of different tears or of happiness? Yeah, I would say absolutely. Non-christians can experience a form of joy or a form of even satisfaction in life, but it can be misguided or even like rooted in the wrong thing and just like what's causing the joy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you know what brings them joy, or at least how they understand their life, the meaning of their life. It could be incorrect, although it's bringing them a certain satisfaction. And to add to that, sometimes the more you know, the less happy you are.
Speaker 3:So that's like, if you're a Christian and you're like, well, there's a spiritual war going on in this and you have what's called the Dark World thesis, which is the world itself is a dark place and there's a lot of evil that happens in this world and human beings are not basically good, and that's another myth bust that we can go to later.
Speaker 3:And you understand well, there's a, there's a this is an embattled spiritual world, and there's a there's a war going on, there's a lot of evil things happening, the there's no longer ignorant and so therefore you no longer blissful, and that can rob you of a lot of joy. I think what's hard for Christians, the included, is to be so future oriented Maybe that's another recommendation is being future oriented, being so future oriented that you understand, you can, you can see the end, which is us with God for eternity, and that's a good thing. And and also a deep appreciation for what God has done for us, which is another heart.
Speaker 3:It's hard to grasp that, I think a lot of times for us as Christians, like what exactly did God do for us in Christ? We understand it at a cognitive level, and I think it's some sense, and in a spiritual, emotional level. But, boy, there's going to be a time where we're really going to understand it, and that's going to be on the other side of eternity, and I think we, as Hebrews, his faith is the substance or the evidence of things. Hope for the substance of things not seen or maybe I switch that.
Speaker 3:That is the thing I think we need to hold on to is that we will. We will understand. It's like if you just imagine God is a loving father sitting you down and saying I know you don't understand right now, but I promise you you will one day in me, you know. And it's like then you're in on the secret.
Speaker 3:You're in on the divine secret Ironically, the secret that you need to tell everyone about. But it's like OK, ok, yeah, the, as the Old Testament prophets would say, why do the wicked rage? Why does it seem like the wicked are the ones who always prosper in this life? Well, they have this life, but we have the next and that's that being it. On the secret attitude, knowing God is good and he's working a plan, and I know it's hard, man, I know it's hard, but that plan is being worked and I'm going to understand it one day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, ok, wow, that was good. Yeah, man. So happiness is not exclusive or or or holiness not exclusive of happiness, but it can be. Happiness can be product of holiness and, hopefully, looking at, and joy as well. What does that look like for us as believers that we're thinking about the end game for the future or the future or in on the secret right At the end of it all.
Speaker 1:So, guys, hopefully this was a blessing to you and remember to subscribe, like the podcast here with other people. These are conversations that we all should be having and we are having, but hopefully we're able to kind of give you more information in regards to that and thank you for being here with us. Thanks for listening. All right, see you next time.