Happy

One of my favorite promises comes from Phil 1:9. 

“ . . . he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.  . . . “ 

I am 65 years old and God is not finished with me yet. Hurray!  He is still about his patient and gentle work of changing me to be more like Jesus. 

He’s not through with the work he is doing in my husband’s heart and life. Hurray!

Recently he wrote to our prayer supporters about the newest lesson he is learning. (I’ll copy it below.) Steve is a very capable man. Perhaps the smartest man I know and definitely the hardest worker. He gets things done! But he’s not a “just get it done” kind of guy. He is wise and cautious. He has an attention to detail that has saved us from much heartache along the way.

So when this very capable man admits that he needs to reconsider his independent nature and live more reliant on God through prayer, I realized God is still at work.

So I wondered, what might God be doing in my heart? What is a strength of mine that has a corresponding weakness that God may be correcting? 

I keep myself awake on long drives by myself by listening to podcasts. Before a recent trip, I was downloading my options. CCEF had one called “Jesus and Happiness.”  My first thought at seeing the title was, "I bet Steve would be happy if I was happier.” 

Outside of the house, I may seem like a happy person. Truth is, I use all my energy to be happy when around others. But I am given by nature to being melancholy. There is a lot of sadness in the world, and I feel it, bear it, reflect it. And Steve is the one who has to live with this side of me. 

So I downloaded the podcast and listened to it on the way to Birmingham. I was encouraged and challenged by the definition of happiness used. Here it is from the transcript. 

“ . . . when we talk about someone or something being blessed, essentially what we mean is that it is flourishing in exactly the way it was meant to function. There is fruit being born from this tree, from this plant, and it is rich fruit, and it's exactly the kind of fruit that it was made to bear. It's not being hindered from producing fruit. Windstorm hasn't come. The locusts haven't eaten it. To be blessed is to succeed in the very things which you are intending to do. The purposes for which you did an action are coming to fruition. That's how I understand the heart of blessedness. So when we think about happiness and blessedness going together, I think essentially what we're saying is that to be happy, to be truly and deeply happy, is to be blessed in the sense that you see fruit being born where you are seeking to bear, nurture, and raise fruit.”

https://www.ccef.org/podcast/jesus-and-happiness

Happiness comes from an awareness of the fruit that God is working in and through the person he made you as a specific individual to be.

I have so much to be happy about. Fruitfulness is a word I have used many times to describe this period of our lives. 

Along with this helpful definition of happiness, came the permission to be happy even in a fallen world. Jesus knew sorrow a million times more than I do. He was a man of sorrows. He was intimately aware of the difference between what should be and what was. He suffered wrongly. He saw others who he loved suffer. If anyone could have lived with a melancholy outlook, Jesus could have. 

But Jesus was a happy person. People loved to be with him. Children loved to be around him.  Alasdair Groves says he found delight and joy in seeing the fruit of his incarnation and redemptive work in the lives of others. In all that was wrong, he knew his life was a part of God’s plan to bring The Good to pass. So even in his suffering he could see the joy set before him. 

Could I be a happier person? Could I acknowledge what is hard and sad in the world without having it become my focus and dominate my outlook? Might that require an admission that many of the burdens I carry were never intended to be mine? 

The God of the universe - who is sovereignly orchestrating all events to culminate in his glorious and joy filled reign over all - has written me into a minuscule part of this plan and he is working in and through me to bear the fruit he specifically designed me to bear. What fun is that? 

Maybe this thought might make me a happier person at home. At 65, God is still doing a good work in me! 

God’s work in Steve:

“I was recently teaching a class at Christ Church here in Atlanta about the Person of Christ.  As we considered Jesus in the wilderness facing temptation and in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before the cross, this question came to mind:   Did Jesus, the eternal Son of God, pray to God the Father in eternity past?  

Have you ever wondered about that?  I never had. Let me know if you see it differently, but I came to the following conclusion. 

Jesus enjoyed an eternal relationship of love with God the Father and enjoyed perfect unity with the Trinity.  They were in constant communication. But I don't think he prayed to the Father with a sense of petition as he did as the incarnate Son of God. 

Why?  Because Jesus had no sense of need prior to his incarnation.  Once Jesus took on human flesh, truly God and truly man, he had great need in many ways. Prior to that, Jesus never experienced need of any kind. 

Then the thought struck me:  have I spent the majority of my life viewing prayer as something I should do because that's what mature believers are supposed to do,  or something I need to do because I am a needy person?    

Jesus prayed because He was in great need as He battled with Satan's temptations.  If He, the God-Man,  needed to pray to the Father, how much more do I?  

So, I head to Serbia deeply aware of my need. Who is adequate to explain how the seeming foolishness of preaching is one of the greatest privileges given to man, yet one of the most humbling of all endeavors?  Who is adequate to explain the mystery of how a pastor heralding God's Word is like a farmer sowing the seed that will spring up in some people's hearts to a wide and varied harvest?  How do you prepare a person for the task of faithfully, patiently and zealously preaching God's Word in season and out for thirty years?    

It encourages me that all of you reading this are praying people.  . . . .”