Have No 'Right To Happiness"

There are many misconceptions about pursuing happiness.  The first thing I think we confuse is what we want.  We confuse short term happiness with the long term joy we really long for.  Then we confuse the extent to which it is lawful or moral to pursue happiness.  These misconceptions all lead back to the need for Christ as our ultimate standard for the pursuit of a meaningful Christian life rather than a happy one.  

In my psychology class last semester, we were talking about divorce the decisions that go along with when it’s acceptable to divorce someone and when it is not.  I remember him saying something along the lines of we know that as Christians we are will have to sacrifice our physical health, our material wealth; so why do we think we deserve psychological health?   God never promises us an easy life or a happy life.   I think that we assume psychological gifts like happiness are our rights because we sometimes associate happiness with helping us to overcome obstacles in our life.  For example, someone can get over a job with bad pay if it makes them happy.  However, I think the main misconception is that it is not happiness but God given joy that helps us to preserver whatever the circumstances.  When Paul was in prison, he probably wasn’t happy about it but he could still praise God and be joyful because he could trust that God will fulfill his promises. I was lead back to the idea of shalom.  When we think bigger than ourselves of the community as a whole, we can’t all get ahead in our personal lives all the time, this prevents continual short-term happiness but allows for long-term peace and joy.  

C.S. Lewis writes, “They [the writers of the august declaration] meant ‘to pursue happiness by all lawful means’; that is, by all means which the Law of Nature sanctions and which the laws of the nation shall sanction.”  I think that when most people think about the pursuit of happiness they forget that the founding fathers, who most of whom where themselves religious, wishes for people to abide my moral laws meaning that people should be governed by national laws as well as moral codes for all human beings. C.S. Lewis shows through his fictional story of Mr. A divorcing Mrs. A to marry Mrs. B who divorced Mr. B to marry Mr. A, that what is lawful by national standards in not necessarily lawful my moral or biblical standards.  It is important to remember that as Christians we are governed by someone much higher than our national government, we are governed by God.  Especially in individualistic cultures such as America we get so self-absorbed with immediate gratification that we forget about the long term joys that things like loyalty, honor, reliability and love can bring.  We tend to underestimate our responsibilities to our community and even as in the Mr. A and Mrs. B our responsibilities to our spouses.  

The more I read of C.S. Lewis the more I keep coming back to the same conclusion.  In order to live a full and meaningful life we need to be imitators of Christ.  When we have a close relationship with God he helps us to see things more clearly (look at things, along things, and maybe above things), to be patient and gracious to others and learn from them rather than rebuke them, and to distinguish between selfish desires for ourselves and God’s plan for our lives.