Our secular world today emphasizes being happy too much.
“I just want to be happy.”
“Do what makes you happy.”
“What’s wrong with doing something that makes you happy?”
People are so consumed with finding happiness that they take it from whatever source first comes their way. Even if the happiness they find is fleeting. Even if it means being hurt in the end.
As a result, many religious people can’t help but speak up and say there’s something wrong with this.
There seems to be a growing number of posts over social media saying that the Christian goal is not to be happy but to be holy.
One quote that seems to support this message is from A.W. Tozer:
“The true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be holy.”
There is some truth in this also. We were indeed meant to be holy instead of being led to sin. Christians merely wanted to clarify that it is not the pursuit of earthly amusements that God desires because such things can never give us true joy.
However, those who do not share the depths of our Christian faith may think that our pursuit of holiness is contrary to anything that makes us happy.
As such, the picture here would be incomplete. And it can paint a dire picture of sour-faced Christians who are always sad, unable to rejoice and always trying to spoil what makes others happy.
How do we share our faith with others when all they can see is a religion that takes away their happiness?
The truth that they have to see is that God meant us to be both happy and holy, and we can’t have one without the other.
True holiness must yield lasting joy. And the pursuit of true happiness must lead also to holiness.
We mustn’t forget holiness. But we mustn’t think that God doesn’t care about our happiness.
At the start of the Baltimore Catechism, one of the questions asked is this:
Why did God make us?
And the answer is as follows:
“God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.
Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared
for those who love him. ”
(I Corinthians 2:9)
“You see, God created you and I to be happy in this life and the next… He cares for you. He watches your every move. There’s no one that loves you (who) can do that.” – Mother Angelica
The Gospels are also called the Good News because they are indeed good! They are so good that nothing can ever compare to the happiness we’d find by receiving it wholeheartedly.
We Christians are truly messengers of joy!
“Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” – Mother Teresa
God wants to make us happy. And for us to be happy, we also need to be holy.
Holiness is what can make us WHOLE. It heals everything in us that has been broken by sin. It mends our wounds, our fears, our resentments and our doubts and brings us to a place of peace. In other words, being whole is being happy.
God is not the one who takes away our happiness. He is the one who restores it! And the happiness He gives is not the kind the world gives. It is not the kind that is fleeting or shallow or eventually leads us to emptiness and despair.
The happiness that God gives is an incomparable happiness that fills us to the full, heals all our wounds and makes the very core of our being sing out loud with thanksgiving.
God Himself is Joy. And only in God can we find a happiness that lasts and completes the very meaning of our lives.
“So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”- John 16:22-24 (NABRE)
“How is it, then, that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life, let me seek you so that my soul may live, for my body draws life from my soul and my soul draws life from you.” – St. Augustine
Have you ever felt afraid that once you strive for holiness, you will eventually risk losing your happiness?
If you are searching for happiness, here’s how holiness can help you find it: “How Holiness Leads to Happiness.”
Jocelyn Soriano is the author of the book To Love an Invisible God. “In this book, she narrates how it is possible to love Someone we may not see with our physical eyes. This book will also give you a glimpse of what it’s like to love God and how happy you can be when you finally get to know Him and be with Him each day.”
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”- St. Augustine
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