Happiness is a Bigger Problem Than You Think. How? Here's How

Every day, does it seem to get worse?   A light turns green, and within a millisecond, someone honks.  Sheesh, give that poor car a millisecond ok?  Of course, then what happens?  You see that same honking car sitting at another red light just a mile up the road.  A lot of good that honk did.  But forget the honks.   People get so unhappy these days about all sorts of stuff.  They rant on the radio and cable news.   And social media?  So often, the last thing I’d call it is social.    

But what do we really have to be unhappy about?  Sure, things aren’t perfect.  But did anyone get shot or bombed on the way to worship this morning.  If you do a political rant on Facebook, does anyone come and arrest you?   When you go to the drugstore, do you find medicine on the shelves?  Yet lots of places in the world face those things and worse.    With all our nation’s challenges, we still live in a place more stable, more peaceful, more well provided for than almost anywhere else.    Yet, folks are still unhappy, and not only unhappy but anxious.  In the world, no one gets more anxious than Americans.   We’re No. 1.  

But why?  Maybe the problem has to do with the whole idea of happy.  Could happy be hurting us.   Could happy, the whole idea of it, make you unhappy?   Maybe people need to give happy the old heave ho.   No more happy for me, thank you very much.   How could happy be the problem?  More crucially, if you give happy the heave ho, what goes there?  In these words, from Paul’s letter to a church in Philippi, God shows you the way.   Let’s hear what God has to say. 

Philippians4:4-9

In a nation full of unhappy people, how do you stay happy?   You don’t.   You give happiness the heave ho.  You stop focusing on happiness.  Instead you rest in joy.  You want peace?  You want fulfillment?  Stop focusing on happiness.  Instead rest in joy.  You see people believe that happiness is what they need.  But you don’t need happiness.   What you need is joy.   Joy trumps happiness every time.   Don’t misunderstand me.   I don’t have anything against happiness, except this.  Happiness doesn’t last.  

Last week, I talked about that TV show Mad Men, about an advertising agency in the 60s, and their star advertising guru, Don Draper.  In that show, the guru Don Draper asks.  ‘What is happiness?”   And his answer?  “It’s the moment before you need more happiness.”   Don Draper wasn’t sharing any new idea.   For thousands of years, people have known it.  Happiness doesn’t last.   

Heck, when the Greeks, the folks who gave us a lot of our words in English, came up with their word for happiness, do you know what it meant?  It described how the rich don’t have much to worry about or how you feel if you win the lottery.  They connected happiness to circumstances.   And you know what? Circumstances come and circumstances go.

I remember thirty years ago I had finally saved enough money to buy the stereo system of my dreams.   It had it all, dual tape deck, five CD player, a super powerful amp, and the piece de resistance, Bose speakers.   When I first hooked that baby up and cranked out some tunes, I did a happy dance all through my living room.   I was so happy.    

But then a week passed.   Two weeks.   Three weeks.   I still loved my dream stereo.  But my happiness level, had gone down.  It had gone down a lot.   Why? Happiness doesn’t last.   And if you try to make it last, well, that will mess you up. 

I heard this definition of addiction this week.   Addiction is when you need more and more of something to make you less and less happy.  Happiness doesn’t last.   And if you expect it to or think if you get this thing or achieve this goal, you’ll finally be happy.  You won’t.  Instead, you’ll eventually be very unhappy.   And even before you’re unhappy, you’ll be anxious, worrying when your happiness is going to go away.

So, if happiness doesn’t work, what does?  Joy does.  And the Greeks told us that too.   Their word for joy meant a fullness within that you have no matter what happens.  In other words, circumstances don’t take away joy.   Something can, yes, but not circumstances.  So, what takes away joy?  Fear.   That’s why in this letter, God, in Paul’s words, moves straight from joy to peace. Joy and peace live together.  Just like ironically happiness and anxiety live together too. 

And when God talks about peace, God is not talking about an absence of something.  God is talking about a fullness.   God is talking a fullness in you so complete that you simply don’t have room for fear and anxiety.   And this inner peace leads to deeper and deeper joy.   And nothing, when you have it, can take that joy and peace away.  Yes, you can be unhappy but still be at peace.   Yes, you can be sad, even devastatingly sad, but still have joy.  What do I mean?

Have you ever heard of John O’Leary?  When he was nine years old, he experimented with matches and gasoline in his family’s garage.  The worst happened.   The gas fumes created an explosion that burned 100% of his body, 87% with third degree burns, the worst kind.   O’Leary had a 1% chance of living, but live he did, even as he lost his fingers, even as he went through countless surgeries, even as he suffered unthinkable pain.  Yet as an adult, he recounts how in the midst of it, he still found joy and peace.  But you can say, well, of course, kids can be resilient like that.  But what about when you get older, and devastation happens, what then?        

Today, we’re going to sing a classic hymn called, It is Well With my Soul.  I love this song, not simply because of the words, but because of the story behind them.  Horatio Spafford worked as a prominent lawyer in Chicago after the Civil War.  As Chicago grew, he invested heavily in real estate.  But six months after his investment, the Great Chicago Fire hit.  He suffered devastating financial losses.   Then right afterwards, he lost his four- year-old son to Scarlet Fever. 

Two years later, his wife, Anna and his four daughters, 11-year old Annie, 9-year old Maggie, 5- year old Bessie, and two-year old Tanetta traveled on a family vacation to England.  But Horatio, still trying to recover his losses and provide for his family, had to stay behind to travel later.  But that ship that carried his wife and four daughters collided with another.  And even as Anna tried to hold on to her daughters she failed.   A rescue ship found her floating and unconscious. When she reached shore, she sent a telegram to her husband with just these words.   “Saved alone.”    Horatio rushed to England to be with his wife.  And as he sailed, he came to the point on the ocean where his daughters had died.  There, he wrote these words: 

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrow like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say. It is well, it is well with my soul. 

How could someone go through such awful, almost unimaginable losses and write that?  He could do it because of what God tells you here about peace. 

How does peace come, and with it, joy, even in the most profoundly worse moments of your life?   It happens when you focus your thoughts on what can never change.   It’s what Paul means here by these words about whatever is pure and true and honorable.  he uses those words elsewhere in his letters to describe his core convictions about God, about God’s love for him, about God’s working in the world.    So, Paul is telling the Philippians, when worry and fears hit, what do you do?  You ponder what is true no matter what you face, God’s love for you even in your darkest moments.   

When John O’Leary as a child suffered those awful burns, as he sat immobile for months in a hospital bed, how did he make it through?  He remembered the stories of Jesus, how Jesus could walk on water.  And he trusted that if Jesus could do that, Jesus could bring him through this. 

And on that ship, Horatio Spafford did the same thing.  The next verse of his poem goes like this: 

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

He pondered if God did that for me, then in some way, God will bring me through this.   Even in his almost unbearable grief, because of that truth, he could find peace, even joy. 

And out of that joy, came, even in the loss, as strange as it sounds, gratitude, but a certain type of gratitude, the gratitude Paul describes here.  When Paul talks about praying with thanksgiving, do you get what Paul is saying?  He is saying something stunning.  He is saying.  When you ask God for an answer, thank God even before you know what the answer is.   Why would you thank God even before you have your answer?   You do it to remember, to remember that whatever God’s answer will be, it will be the answer you would have chosen if you knew what God knew.  

That’s exactly what Spafford does here.   He says, I’m going to let this blessed assurance control.   If Jesus gave up everything for me, he will not only see me through this.  Jesus will even find a way to bring good out of this awful evil. 

And astoundingly God did for both Spafford and O’Leary.  Today, John O’Leary, a devout Catholic, delivers inspiring talks to corporations and organizations around the world.    His devastating story has become a powerful message that encourages and lifts up thousands, even millions.   He still carries the scars.  He still faces the looks from those who see his mangled hands.  But he lives in joy and peace because he ponders what can never change.  Here are his own words:

God is not this wonderful white bearded guy who lives way up there. God is this extraordinarily personal friend who loves me and authored my life and the life of the 7 billion friends on this earth. God is the one who welcomes me back into God’s house every time I mess up, which happens quite frequently. It turns out that I am the Prodigal Son; it’s awesome to know that we are lucky enough to be loved by a God who is continually on the edge of the driveway looking for us, and when he sees us he goes running toward us.

And as for Horatio Spafford, what happened to him?  He and Anna did have other children.  And their devastating loss compelled them to go and bring peace to the brokenness of the Holy Land.  Together with a group of friends, they began a mission in Jerusalem known as the American Colony to care for folks of all faiths.  During the devastation of the first World War, that mission fed thousands.  It sheltered hundreds of orphans.  And in 1925, Horatio’s daughter, Bertha, founded the Spafford Children’s Center in the Colony’s first house.  And 150 years after Horatio’s immense loss, each year. it cares for more than 30,000 children in Israel and Palestine.   

You see.  When you focus your heart, even on your hardest days, on God’s love for you, it not only brings you joy and peace.  It enables you to bring joy and peace to others, maybe even thousands.   In your bulletin, you’ll see an insert about God’s offer of gratitude and peace, and I would add to that, God’s offer of joy.  I don’t want you to fill it out today, but I want you to ponder what God might be calling you to do.   

You can think money will bring you happiness, and it will, for a while.  But it cannot bring you joy or peace.   It cannot even bring you security.    Horatio Spafford could tell you that.   Yet still you can get addicted to it.   That’s why God calls you to give.  Yes, your gifts make a difference in the world, including right here in this community.  But more than that, your gifts make a difference in you.  They remind you of what ultimately matters.  They help you focus on the amazing gifts of God that no loss, no matter how great, can ever take away.    And they free you from the delusion that your money can ever give you what you ultimately need.  So, as you go home today, remember what alone can give you peace and joy, God’s love for you.  And as you remember, remember at what price that peace and joy came.   

For, when Jesus went to that cross, did he have peace?  Did he have joy?  No.  He lost his peace in that dark and despairing place.   He cried out.  My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?    He had no joy.  The brutality and pain of those hours emptied him of joy.  But he willingly gave up his peace so that you might know a peace that passes understanding   He left behind his joy to open the way to joy for you now and forever.   And God did all that willingly, freely, out of love for you.    At any moment, Jesus could have walked away.  Jesus could have ended the agony.   But Jesus stayed on that cross, because even there, utterly alone and beset by evil at its worst, God’s love for you did not change.    And if God’s love did not break under that, then it will never break.  Death won’t break it.  No loss or setback or failing will break it.  And the more you realize that, the more joy will fill you and peace, a peace that pushes away fear, that passes all understanding.   And as it does, you won’t be stressed so much anymore about your happiness.  You’ll know.  You have something that no happiness could ever begin to give, and that no unhappiness can take away.