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A happy New Year to everyone! May you be blessed and encouraged in 2010.
When I last wrote an article for our website, it was about the financial crisis. I want to address a different (but popularly perceived as related) issue. We’ve heard a lot from our politicians in recent days about “aspiration”. The word speaks of hopes, of dreams, of longings and desires. It’s a good word; we all need aspirations.
What concerns me comes from an item I heard on the radio a few days ago giving the results of a survey which had been done, apparently across a wide age range. It seems that most people’s chief desire was to be happy; second to that came a good family life.
Of course we all want to be happy - I question whether we have a right to be happy, though. We learn from the Hebrew and Christian Holy Scriptures (what we generally call the Old and New Testaments), that happiness is a consequence of a certain way of living. It’s not something that can or should be pursued for its own sake.
That way of living (and I’ll stick my neck right out and declare that it’s the only way which will achieve true happiness) is a way of life that is consciously and constantly based on the revealed will of God in Jesus Christ, the one who is ‘Emmanuel, God with us’.
How can I dare to say that? Because God created us, God brought us into life, and God cares for us. He knows what we need because he knows us better than any other being in the universe. He knew us when we were formed in the innermost depths in the womb. He was there as we developed into the people we were when we were born, and has been with us all through this journey we call Life. And because he made us, he knows how he has designed us to function - in relationship with him.
Any other chosen way of life will not bring happiness. Happiness comes from doing the right thing. The right thing is to live God’s way. The pursuit of happiness for itself can only end in frustration.