God does not want you to be sad and grumpy. He wants you to be happy. Or, as Psalm 67 says, God wants you to “be glad and sing for joy” (v4).
Every single person desires to be happy. We get married to be happy. Many get divorced. We buy furniture. We sell furniture. We do all kinds of things to be happy. Wanting to be happy is not wrong; but wanting to find happiness in the wrong things is.
Paul said it this way in Romans 1:25, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator.” We have tried to find happiness in created things rather than the Creator; we have loved the gifts rather than the Giver.
A few weeks ago my wife and I bought a cool lounge suite for our braai room. It was our first furniture purchase. I envisioned relaxing evening with a glass of red wine. I imagined enjoying the soft seats while the fire blazed. I pictured feelings of happiness and tranquillity. Finally we had our suite. Well, the dog messed (euphemism!) on the floor which I had to clean up and the fire would not burn because the wood was wet. The steak turned out to be cardboard and the lounge suit was not quite what we had thought. My happiness, sadly, went up the chimney.
C S Lewis put it this way, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
The problem is not that we seek joy and happiness, but that we seek them in wrong things. The bible tells us that true and unending and infinite happiness is found in God, not in things.
Therefore the Psalmist pray in Psalm 67 that God’s ways may be known on earth and his salvation among all nations. He desires people from all the nations to be happy and glad in God so that they “may praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.”
Are you happy in God? Or are you trying to find happiness in mud pies? Do you desire and pray and plan to share your happiness in God with your neighbours and the nations?
I heard a talk by JP Moreland (Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology) on what he calls "The Lost Virtue of Happiness". (by the way there is also a book co-written with Klaus Issler of the same name.)
One of the most interesting points he makes is that the very concept of what happiness is has changed in the last 200 years from what it had been for centuries. He also argues that Americans are addicted to this new definition of happiness.
Just to give you an idea of this guys bizarre ideas he suggest that this new definition is: "A sense of pleasurable satisfaction." It is basically a feeling.
While he believes pleasurable satisfaction is a good thing to have (he isn't anti the current definition of happiness) he believes that there are more important goods that should be sort.
He suggests that if we live a life seeking after "pleasurable satisfaction" we will be chasing after a secondary good (since there are more important goods) and also that "pleasurable satisfaction" can't be attained by chasing after it since it is a by-product.
Lastly I just want to point out what the (what he calls) classic definition of happiness was. A life of wisdom, virtue and character. In other words, happiness was someone who was good at life.
I see there are some video's up on google video by JP on this topic. I haven't seen the videos but I assume its the same talk.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3419835744978353610
What a crazy idea. I think he's onto something though.