Resisting Happiness

When was the last time you paused to really think about your life? Was it last week? Last month? Last year? Or has it been a few years? Very often when I ask people this question, I see them searching their minds for an answer, and then they will say things like, “I honestly cannot tell you. I mean, I think about things that are happening in my life, or decisions that I need to make, but I can’t remember the last time I purposefully made time to think about my life and how I am living it.”

We are all so busy. I meet up with friends who have retired from demanding full-time jobs, and they tell me they are busier than they have ever been. Resistance loves to keep us busy. When we are too busy to reflect on how we are living our lives, it is almost certain that we are not busy doing the right things.

There are four words that embody the challenge of the Christian life; we find them in the fifth line of the Our Father: Thy will be done. These four words present the greatest challenge of Christianity.

It all depends on our image of God. If we see God as “far away,” trying to control everything and everyone, we probably react to these words as an infringement on our personal freedom. If we see God as a loving father who wants good things for us even more than we want them for ourselves, who always has our best interests at heart, then we react very differently. For this reason, it is important that we constantly reflect upon our image of God. How we see God has an enormous impact on our lives. Our image of God is the lens through which we see ourselves, others, and the world. Our spirituality is particularly impacted by the way we see God. It is good to explore the assumptions we have about him from time to time—not incessantly, because that becomes harmful, but to step back from time to time and ask: What is my image of God? How do I see him? What are his attributes?

It may even be helpful to write these things down. Our image of God is so deeply ingrained in us, but it is easy for life and the world to corrupt that image. And a false or distorted view of God tends to distort our relationships, which are the foundation of life in this world.

When Jesus invites us to call God Father, he is inviting us to a very intimate relationship with God, and telling us that the transcendent God of the universe is concerned with the needs of each and every one of us. Jesus is constantly presenting a beautiful image of God. It is only in the context of this true image that we can fully embrace those four words: Thy will be done.

When I first started traveling and speaking, I spoke at a conference in Illinois. There were various vendors selling things and I noticed a framed picture of Noah’s ark for a child’s nursery. Along the bottom of the frame was etched, “Noah did everything that the Lord God commanded him to do.” (Genesis 7:5) I bought it and for many years I had it hanging in my study, where I write. When Walter was born, I hung it above his crib. It has hung above Isabel’s and Harry’s cribs, and now it is there above Ralph’s.

Whenever I see that picture and read those words, it is like an instant examination of conscience. It is not easy to walk with God. It is not easy to live as he commands us to live.

When was the last time you knew exactly what God was inviting you to do in a situation but you did the opposite? We all fall into this willful rejection of “Thy will be done.” We become proud and arrogant and willful, and with our actions we scream, “My will be done!” But does it make us happy?

This has been going on for a long time. Adam and Eve took and ate the fruit in the garden. Cain killed his brother, Abel. Lot’s wife looked back on Sodom and Gomorrah, directly disobeying the instructions God had given her through the angel. The Israelites rebelled against what God had said to them through Moses, and as a result were left wandering in the dessert for forty years. God asked Jonah to go to Ninevah, but he flat out refused to go. Samson was told not to reveal the source of his strength, but he told Delilah.

We live in a culture that says the meaning of life is to get what we want, and that when we get what we want, then we will be happy. We yearn for happiness because we were created for it, so we fall for the lie. We race off into the world to get what we want, but sooner or later we all realize that getting what we want doesn’t make us happy.

At least not in the way we thought it would. A few months after you get that car that you wanted your whole life, it is just a car, a means of transportation. Does it bring you some happiness? Yes. Does it please and pleasure you? Yes. But it doesn’t bring you that deep and lasting satisfaction that you yearn for.

Every day we make dozens of decisions, some of them large and most of them small. God wants to help you become a phenomenal decision maker. He wants to set you on fire with passion and purpose. He wants your yes to be a passionate and enthusiastic YES, and your no to be a firm NO. It is so easy to become lukewarm, but he doesn’t want that for you.

The thing about being lukewarm is nobody ever thinks they are. I have had people share all sorts of personal failings with me. They will tell me they have a problem with lust and pornography, with gluttony and overeating, with jealousy and judging others, but I have never had someone say to me, “I’m a not a generous person.” And I have never had anyone say to me, “I’ve become lukewarm like those people God talks about vomiting out of his mouth.”

The other thing about being lukewarm is that it is so easy to blend in. The lukewarm typically go to Mass every Sunday and give money to their parish and other charities. From the outside they appear to be committed Christians. But the lukewarm also tend to choose convenience and comfort over what is right and just. They rarely talk about God or their spiritual journey. Jesus is part of their lives, but he is not at the center of their lives. They are not willing to make sacrifices to grow spiritually. They almost never think about heaven, but are instead obsessed with the things of this world. They structure their lives so they never really have to trust God too much. The lukewarm watch television shows they know don’t make them the-best-version-of-themselves, and swear, and drink far too much from time to time.

These are just a few characteristics of the lukewarm. But I think you will agree that this one paragraph paints a pretty clear picture. How do I know these things? I see them clearly because I have been there. I have been there so many times.

God doesn’t want us to be lukewarm. He wants to set us on fire. And when we are on fire we have great clarity and become excellent decision makers.

If you have children, isn’t this right at the core of what you want for them? You want your children to become really good decision makers. Wouldn’t you have great peace of mind if this were so? God is the ultimate parent, and he wants you and me, his children, to become great decision makers. When was the last time you invited God into your decision-making process?

Think about all the people we seek advice from, and all the people who give us their unsolicited advice. Whom do you turn to for advice?

Decisions are the foundation of life. With each decision we choose order or chaos, clarity or confusion, life or death, with God or against God. We have already discussed the insanity of choosing against God, but clearly it has been going on for a long time, and we do it ourselves every day in some small way. Every decision we make leads us either toward the peace and happiness we yearn for or away from it. Our decisions are the foundation of our lives. Saint Augustine famously wrote in Confessions, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you Lord.” Many saints and many sinners have found these words to be profoundly true.

God invites us into a deep life of prayer so that he can fill us with a peace that nobody can take from us. We all need something that nobody can take from us. God wants to fill you with a peace that cannot be shaken; a peace that is untouchable.

Surrender to these four words: Thy will be done. Invite God into the center of your decision-making process. Seek his will in all things. This is the road that leads to the happiness we desire. It is a happiness that is not fleeting or short-lived; it is lasting happiness in this changing world. The idea that we can find happiness outside of God’s will is one of the most absurd ideas in history, and yet we each employ this concept in some way great or small every day of our lives.


	KEY POINT These are the four words that embody the Christian challenge: Thy will be done.
	ACTION STEP Take a few minutes to reflect on your image of God. Write down the qualities that make up the way you see God. Try to trace each quality back to its roots in your life.