Producing Happiness

Most of us would like a change in our lives. We are unhappy about something. This unhappiness presents as a variety of unpleasant symptoms such as anger, anxiety, boredom, fear, frustration, hatred, headaches, high blood pressure, jealousy, loneliness, resentment, restlessness, ulcers --- an unease about something or maybe many things ranging from credit to climate. We blame others; we blame ourselves; we even blame God. Yet maybe somewhere in you lies the suspicion that your thought patterns set you up for unhappiness. If so, you are right. This essay is about becoming aware of what you are doing to yourself and how to stop it.

What is Happiness?

Happiness occurs when what we want equals what we have. Want = Have. We keep trying to work on the right side of the equation, aiming to dynamically affect what is going on so that we have more. The Bible counsels us to not neglect the left side (Philippians 4:11). This concept was driven home to me when I heard someone say “Now being in this wheelchair would be a problem for me……..if I wanted to walk.”

What Keeps Us From Being Happy?

I am going to direct you to three principles from the Bible that you can use to vanquish unhappiness. There is only one thing that will stop you from applying them to specific circumstances in your life when you need them. That one thing is you! Not you, really. It is your mind’s habits --- models of how you think things are, pride, and ego’s urge to be right rather than happy --- all motivated by seeking after security, pleasure, and power.

The Bible recognizes these drives in diverse passages. We see this recognition in the very first woman as she was tempted to eat the only prohibited fruit in the garden where she lived.  Genesis 3:6a: “The woman saw that the tree had fruit that was good to eat, nice to look at, and desirable for making someone wise.”  This fruit seemed good to eat (security), pleasing to look at (pleasure), and it seemed it would make her wise (power).

The gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, each tell us, in their fourth chapters, of three temptations wherewith Jesus was tested by Satan.  First, he was urged to turn stones into bread after he had been fasting almost 6 weeks.  This appeals to the security drive.  Then an appeal was made to the pleasure drive when Jesus was urged to jump from a high pinnacle. This was followed by an appeal to the human drive for power: he was offered rulership over all the earth.

Later, in the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, the master teacher is recounted at Luke 8:14 as describing a man’s motivations: “…worries, riches, and pleasures of life…”   Worries have to do with security, riches with power, and the term “pleasures” is just that.

John describes the motives of the world (I John 2:16): “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”   There’s our pattern again: security (lust of the flesh), pleasure (lust of the eyes), and power (pride of life). I know each of these well: the fear of being hurt, the yearning for sensations, and the pride of life, one manifestation of which is going out in the morning without having prayed first --- a sense of self sufficiency.  All are illusory.  All are addictions.  They aren’t needs. They’re addictions --- attachments to what I don’t need, but which cause unpleasant symptoms if I am deprived of them.

What Keeps Us From Loving?

The security, pleasure and power drives act as filters when I am viewing and interpreting the circumstances of my here and now. For example, when I am operating with the security programming running, the security aspects of a situation get magnified out of proportion. The result is feelings or emotions that lead to unhappiness. Thoughts trigger feelings, and those feelings are determined by how I am filtering incoming information. If my security filter is active, my feelings about what I am hearing and seeing may be fear, even anxiety, and hatred (since it is easy to hate what I fear). My drive for pleasure will often result in feelings of boredom and restlessness. My drive for power can triggers feelings of resentment or anger.

All of these emotions are my mental programming rejecting my here and now, and they are all painful. The pain saps the energy I need for loving, and turns me inward. Love doesn’t thrive in that emotional environment. In all these cases, my ability to love is compromised. Instead of operating in the spiritual centeredness of love, I am being pulled and pushed away from it by my addictions to security, pleasure, and power.

Moving Beyond the Addictions

Interestingly, the first three fruits of the holy spirit, listed by Paul at Galatians 5:22, combat and replace the three basic psychological drives. If I have love, I am secure. Knowing I am loved, especially by God, takes care of fear (I John 4:18). If God loves me, what matters anything else? I don’t need to fear what’s going on because God is protecting and sustaining me. I don’t need to fear the future because my loving God is already there waiting for me. The second fruit of the holy spirit is joy, and if I have joy, I am not driven by my pleasure. The third fruit in Paul’s list is peace, and with it, my attitude towards power is “Who needs it?”

Clearly, we need to exercise God’s spirit in us to be relieved of the three impediments to love --- security, pleasure, and power. In subsequent articles, we will explore strategies for doing this, and we will do it within a framework of three principles or perspectives that lead to practical healing action.

 

With training and through the exercise of God’s spirit in you, these obstacles to happiness can be handled.