Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 Misquoted II: God Just Wants Me to be Happy
The Pursuit of Happiness
I’ll never forget the conversation. It was late in the afternoon of a crisp fall day. I was standing on my front steps talking to a deacon who lived just down the street from me. He had come to tell me he was quitting leadership and leaving the church.
The reason? He was moving out from his wife and his two teen-age children and moving in with another woman.
He knew his decision did not square with his position as a deacon. He knew the Bible said it was wrong. He knew he was burning bridges with friends and siblings and his own parents. Nothing I said to him was new information.
I asked: “Why?” If he knew all these things to be true, why was he doing it?
“Because,” he said, “I’m not happy with my wife. But my girlfriend makes me happy. And I believe God just wants me to be happy.”
*****
Was he right? Is God’s greatest desire for us our happiness? Do all other considerations take a back seat to our desire for fun?
The Christianism we are looking at today is “God Just Wants Me to be Happy.” It comes through in a number of cliches, both secular and Christian. “If it feels right, do it.” “If God didn’t want you to do it, He would not have made it so much fun!” “Whatever makes you happy.”
The logic works like this: happiness is good. God is also good. Therefore, God must want me to be happy.
More than that, here in America, we feel like happiness is a birthright. The Declaration of Independence says that we are all endowed with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Many of the things marketed to us are sold with the implicit promise that they will make us happy.
- Feeling a little blah? Take a weekend in Vegas. You know what happens there stays there.
- The routines of life got you stuck in a rut? Give this sports car a try and feel the exhilaration of endless horsepower and a finely appointed interior.
- Tired of everybody telling you what to do? Head to your favorite fast food joint and have it your way!
Happiness is so vital to our way of life that it feels almost unpatriotic not to be seeking things that make us happy all of the time. We believe so strongly in the endless pursuit of happiness that we’ve stamped all things happy with God’s seal of approval.
#Blessed
Let’s begin by looking for any Biblical truth in this statement.
This cliche is tricky, because I don’t want to give the impression that God wants us to be unhappy.
I realize a lot of people have been raised with that impression of God. Some people have had such bad experiences with strict churches or overzealous parents that they can only imagine God as a kind of supreme killjoy, who sits in heaven and watches for the slightest sign of fun, then reaches down and swats us—like He’s got one of those portable bug zappers.
It is vital for us to know that God is NOT opposed to our happiness. He is not offended when we smile or laugh or do something that brings us pleasure.
In fact, the Bible is unblushing in its use of words like “pleasure” (see Psalm 16:11); “delight” (see Psalm 37:2); “satisfaction” (see Psalm 17:15); and “gladness” (see Psalm 45:15). The calendar of ancient Israel was filled with mandatory periods of rest and celebration at God’s command (see Leviticus 23). Jesus’ first public miracle took place at a party and involved keeping the wine flowing (see John 2:1-11).
God is not the cosmic hall monitor. He is not waiting in heaven to hand out demerits anytime He sees us having fun.
The Hebrew word often translated “blessed” in the Old Testament is a word that could also be translated as “happy.” I remember taking a class on the Psalms with Dr. Ray Ortlund, Jr where he was practically coming out of his shoes with excitement as he covered Psalm 1:
1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
“Blessed means happy!” Dr. Ortlund told us. “This describes a person who is living a life worthy of congratulations! A person who is to be envied! A person who is living the best life possible!”
The metaphor the psalmist uses in verse 3 is a tree planted by streams of water. The picture is of a life that is fruitful and drought resistant. A happy life. Supremely blessed, fortunate, well-off, and flourishing. That’s what God wants for us.
This blessed state is not a manner of “whatever makes you happy” though. Notice that the person described in the Psalm is one “whose delight is in the law of the Lord,” The Bible recognizes that true happiness is found when we live in a way consistent with God’s designs for us and the world.
In an essay written for Ligonier ministries, Ken Myers says:
When Thomas Jefferson selected the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” to describe one of the unalienable rights of man, he was appropriating an idea with a very long history. Since the time of Aristotle and before, happiness was understood as a condition to which all people properly aspire. But for the Greeks, as for the biblical writers, happiness was an objective reality, not just a feeling or an emotional state.
In other words, he says, happiness is an “ethical, not a psychological project.” The modern sense of happiness as feeling good all the time has overtaken the ancient notion of finding satisfaction in believing and doing the right things. So, when the Declaration of Independence talks about pursuing happiness, it’s not talking about the endless search for the next party. Instead, it’s talking about the freedom to live a good, honorable and productive life.
More than “if it feels good, do it;” the blessed state in the Bible comes from finding delight in the things of God.
Happy Mistakes
Let’s go to our second question. Where does the statement go wrong? What happens when we make the emotional state of happiness the highest goal in life?
I can think of at least 3 problems that come when we start believing that God just wants us to be happy:
- We Fake Happiness
If you are Christian, and you believe that God really wants you to be happy, then you might feel pressure to pretend to be happy, even when you’re not.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: you slept a little late on a Sunday morning. The kids did not want to eat what was offered for breakfast and did not want to wear the clothes you set out for them. On the ride to church you got into an argument with your spouse. By the time the car pulls into the parking lot the littlest is crying, the other two are screaming at each other, and you and your spouse are not talking. Then you turn and say to everybody: “We’re going to church now, so get happy!”
Because we believe God wants us happy we put on a false front of happiness whenever we are at church or around church friends. People greet us in the lobby and say “How’s it going?” and the answer is always “Great, just great” even when we are not, actually, doing all that great.
Sometimes, when we’re around people that we know don’t believe in Jesus—and we’re trying to invite them to church or show Jesus to them—we feel like we have to be happy all the time. We figure the best advertisement for Jesus will be to show them how happy we are. God wants us to be happy, we figure, so we better show people that it’s working.
But here’s the thing: it’s not real. People can tell when we’re faking it. They aren’t looking for insincere, plastered-on smiles. They’re looking for genuine, real people who have genuine, real problems.
Ruth Graham, daughter of Billy Graham, did a series of public speaking engagements after her first marriage ended with her husband’s affair and her second ended when her husband became abusive. At first, she felt she needed to hide. Her history hardly fit the image of America’s most prominent Christian family. But then she decided she had a story to share. As she explained to the Christian Post:
"The world is tired of plastic Christians... I was tired of being a plastic Christian. I told everybody I had it all together, and I was falling apart. And I was scared to death to tell somebody.
“I think I'm dealing with believers already who are just struggling in their lives like I did… A lot of people have been taught that if you're depressed there's something wrong with you spiritually. That's so unfair. It's a physical issue…
“[You] live up to people's expectations, and you become inauthentic and you pretend you have it all together, but inside you're dying."
If we buy into the myth that says God just wants us to be happy, we might be tempted to fake being happy even when we are not. We lie to ourselves, we lie to others, and we give a hollowed-out impression of what Christianity really is.
- We Chase Happiness
A second problem with this myth is that it may lead us in an unfulfilling quest after happiness. If we believe that the most important thing in life is to feel happy, we’ll try experience after experience in order to find happiness.
That’s what happened to the Teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is all about the apparent absurdity of life. In chapter 2, the Teacher goes on a quest for pleasure. He tries laughter. He indulges himself with wine. He undertakes great projects—houses and vineyards, gardens and parks and fruit trees. He buys slaves. He owns flocks and herds. He amasses gold and silver, the treasure of kings and provinces. He brings in the best singers. He brings in hundreds of women to form his own harem. He becomes, in his words, “greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem” before him (Ecclesiastes 2:9).
And yet, this is his conclusion:
10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
After trying everything he could get his hands on, he found he had not gained anything. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes discovered the truth that everybody who has ever chased happiness has discovered—it is temporary, it doesn’t last, and it only leaves you wanting more. Chasing happiness is like chasing the wind.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest continuous study of adulthood ever attempted. Beginning in 1938 researchers began tracking 268 Harvard sophomores--some of the brightest and wealthiest young men in the world--as well as 456 boys from inner city Boston--some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in America. Every two years for the rest of their lives these men were asked to complete a survey. Researchers also studied their medical records, regularly conducted in-person interviews, talked with their wives and other close family members; and in later years studied x-rays, echocardiograms and brain scans. Today, less than 10% of the original subjects are still alive; but researchers are continuing the study with their children and grandchildren.
In an interview with Dr. Laurie Santos on “The Happiness Lab” podcast; the director of the study, Dr. Robert Waldinger, says many of their findings are not surprising. Smoking was bad for the health of the participants. As was alcoholism.
But other things were surprising. In a study of some of the most privileged and some of the most vulnerable men in America over the course of 8 decades, the study found very little correlation between how much stuff a person had and how happy they reported being. Dr. Waldinger says: “Wealth does not make people happy. Having your material needs met does make you happy. Once you get there, making more money does not make you appreciably more happy.”
In many ways, Dr. Waldinger sounds like the Teacher of Ecclessiastes. He says: “Winning the Nobel Prize doesn’t make you happier. Winning the lottery doesn’t make you happier. It’s not the things we imagine, it’s not the shiny baubles that make us happy.”
Instead, Dr Waldinger says that the strongest sense of well-being and satisfaction in life came from those who had the strongest and most enduring relationships. “Our men, as they were looking back on their lives, as they were at the end of their lives; said the things they were proudest of were building a family, raising healthy children, having a strong relationship with a partner, teaching their grandchildren to sail. These were the things they talked about. They didn’t talk about how much they achieved at work or how much money they made.”
When we chase happiness in material things or bigger and better experiences we end up, as the podcast host says, “putting a lot of time and effort into improving our happiness using strategies that will not succeed.”
- We Bow to Happiness
Probably the biggest danger with this myth is that it can lead us to justify all sorts of questionable decisions on the basis of doing what makes us happy.
This is what the deacon on my front steps was doing. He believed the myth and bought the t-shirt. He couldn’t believe God would want him to give up something that made him feel so good. If it was really wrong, he figured God would make him unhappy. But as it was, this is what felt right, and he was going for it.
In the book of Philippians Paul writes about those who live as enemies of the cross of Jesus. He says about them:
19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. (Philippians 3:19)
When we believe that the most important thing God wants for us in life is our happiness, we have a tendency to make gods out of our appetites. We direct our lives by what feels best. When our main goal in life is to sustain our mood, rules tend to get broken.
What Could be Better than Happiness?
Those are some of the problems with living by this cliche. But if God’s greatest desire for us is not happiness, what does He want for us? The third question I want us to ask of each cliche is: Is there better news in the gospel?
I think if we really searched the Bible, we could generate quite a list of things that are more important to God than our happiness. But I’ve thought of three things that correspond to the three problems we just covered.
- Honesty
I think God wants us to be honest with ourselves, with others, and with Him about how we are feeling. I don’t think God wants “happy plastic people” wearing pretend smiles and forcing a silver lining onto everything that happens.
I say that because of the honesty of the Bible. Of the 150 poems that make up the book of Psalms, at least one third of them can be classified as laments. That is, they are poems that start out not by praising God, not by telling God how great He is, but by complaining about how rotten things are.
Take Psalm 55 for example. Here’s how it starts:
1 Listen to my prayer, O God,
do not ignore my plea;
2 hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught.
The Psalms can be almost startling in their honesty. David is not having a good day, and he’s not afraid to tell God about it. He goes on:
4 My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen on me.
5 Fear and trembling have beset me;
horror has overwhelmed me
I’m guessing if you had asked David how things were going on the day he wrote this, he would not have smiled and said “Great, just great.”
Now, I realize that when you ask someone how they are doing, you don’t really want to hear a litany of their latest troubles. There’s some social convention there.
But there also needs to be a place in Christianity for honest lament and reflection on the genuine hurts in life. The church should be a community where we can bring our brokenness and pain. We don’t have to force happiness when it’s not there. God doesn’t want us to be faking it.
- Trust
Instead of chasing after the next great experience all the time, or trying to capture that elusive happiness, God asks us to trust that He will provide us with what we need.
Hebrews 11 has a great illustration taken from the life of Moses:
24By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward
As a Prince of Egypt, Moses had the opportunity to chase happiness wherever he thought he might find it. But rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time, he trusted that God had a reward that would be worth waiting for. So he traded in the palace for wandering in the desert.
In the same way, God wants us to trust that He knows what is best for us. He wants us to view long-term joy as of more value than short-term pleasures.
- Obedience
Often when I hear somebody say: “I believe God just wants me to be happy” I know they are trying to justify something both they and I know is wrong. It really means that they don’t care what God wants at that moment, they are only concerned with what they want.
But when those situations arise, the Bible is pretty clear about what God wants from us. In John 14, Jesus says:
15 “If you love me, keep my commands…23Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”
Clearly, our faith expressed through obedience is more important to God than our short-term happiness.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that obedience will always be unpleasant. Often, doing the right thing is also the thing that will make us the most happy—if not immediately, then almost certainly in the long-run.
But if it comes down to a choice between doing what God says is right, and something that we think will make us happy right now; God asks us to choose obedience. Even if we don’t feel great about it at the moment. Even if we’re not sure how it will work out.
Happiness vs. Joy
The idea that what God most wants for us in life is our happiness is a myth. It can lead us to fake happiness, to chase it, or bow down to it. We can end up shaping our lives in ways that have little to do with what God actually says.
But, again, I don’t want you to think that God is opposed to anything good in life. I don’t want you to get the impression that Christianity is a giant, fun-free zone. I don’t want you to think that God is all dour and grim and severe.
Because that’s not true. In fact, I think there is one more thing God wants for us far more than happiness, and that’s joy.
It’s important for us to see that there is a difference between happiness and joy.
Whenever you are happy, you are probably also experiencing joy. But joy is something you can also experience even when you are not happy.
Happiness, as the modern world tends to define it, is temporary. You see it in the word itself: Happiness equals what’s “happening”. If you say, “I’m happy” you’re really saying “I feel good, right now.” Happiness is dependent on circumstances.
But joy is different. It’s deeper. It lasts even in the midst of the trials of life. Joy isn’t dependent on circumstances. Joy is strength. Joy is internal. Joy is eternal.
It’s possible to have joy even when we are being honest about difficulties we are facing.
It’s possible to have joy even as we are trusting God for something better.
It’s possible to have joy even as we pass on something we know is wrong in order to obey what we know is right.
Joy doesn’t come from what is happening now; but instead comes from the firm conviction that Jesus has all that we need.
Here’s what Jesus said:
- If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:10-11)
Jesus came, not so that we could be happy--though He’s not opposed to us being happy—but so that we could have joy. And that’s much better.
