Western Hills United Methodist Church, El Paso Texas

It seems to have now become a cottage industry.  Many people from many arenas are beginning to study what makes for this elusive realty we all tend to chase called “happiness.”  How we measure it, just what it means, what are its component and the like are all questions that attempt to get at an objective means to measure such a subjective reality.  Now it seems that American business is even trying to get at it, for there must be untold profits laying in wait for those who can help us feel that life is “right.”

Enter Jeanna Bryner of LiveScience.com a publication whose headlines this week read, “America may be the richest nation on earth, but it is not the happiest.”  Little wonder about that isn’t there.  As a nation bent on the juvenile understanding that we must all have what we want when we want it, our think-feel-do cycle is being thwarted by all kinds of inhibitors.  Happiness is being measured by not one but two criteria: one, the overall satisfaction that overtime we are getting what we want and are headed in a generally right direction; and two, the moment to moment enjoyment of life. As a nation, we are reasonable satisfied, but we are also devoid of certain moment to moment realities that make for happiness.

As a Christian, I have usually made a particular distinction between two other things.  One of those is joy and the other happiness.  I have usually defined happiness as an event driven, fleeting sense of well-being that hinges on “happenings” and is thereby fleeting and elusive.  I have usually tried to distinguish that with the word joy, primarily because joy, at least from the biblical standpoint is not about events but relationships.  Joy comes when there is rightness between God and me, and between myself and my most distinctive relationships.

Lest one think this is only semantics, remember this, we can have joy regardless of our happenings.  We cannot have happiness without happenings.  It is the difference one sees in the life of another who is right in all her relationships, and has joy even while she dies of cancer.  It is the difference one sees in another who is right in all his relationships even though his friends from the war continue to die.  For me, I would rather have joy, since joy helps me handle all my happenings.

See you soon, when we will meet the One whose Joy and zest for life is transmitted to us as we receive His Spirit and His redemption.

Pastor Mark