The Declaration of Independence of the United States declares “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
As a citizen, you have the right to the “pursuit” of happiness, but not the achievement of happiness. Happiness was never promised nor intended to come from your government. The first step to achieving happiness is to realize that it is your responsibility, but thankfully, it is not yours alone. Happiness cannot be expected to come as a result of interactions with your girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, children, or your government representatives. Achieving happiness requires soulful insight and deep reflection.
In my experience, the failure to experience happiness is most often linked with unfulfilled expectations. Wants and desires, put into our heads and hearts by comparisons to others or unscrupulous marketers, foments jealously, envy, and steers us away from achieving contentment. We fall victim to the original sin, trying to “be like God.” We desire to live in a world where our will be done. We attempt to speak into existence a world of our creation, one following rules we’ve imagined.
When my spouse doesn’t live up to the expectations I have, I’m disappointed. I can see the shortcoming as an intentional lack of interest in understanding or meeting my needs. I blame her for missing the mark and not meeting my expectations. When my kids don’t live up to my expectations or don’t heed my advice, I find a part of me secretly hoping for some small cataclysm to befall them so they can learn their lesson and listen to the old man. When the actions of my boss, neighbors, or politicians run counter to my vision of right living, it tends to provoke a desire within me to withdraw, and sever relations.
When the gap between “how things are” and “how they should be” widens, I become distraught, depressed, and often angry. I lash out at the people who are not falling in line to help form and thereby allow me to realize my vision of how things should be. The cliché image of a father driving their kids and shouting “I’m going to turn this car around if you don’t stop!” tells me I’m not in the minority of people with this expectation gap.
I may, however, be in the minority of people who believe they have discovered a path to “be happy.” This discovery was prompted thanks to the recent isolation and curtailment of so many of the freedoms usually taken for granted. Out of necessity I’ve had the opportunity to remember only I can choose for myself to be happy. The alternative seems to be to die, only to realize I had always been assuming that one day I’d achieve this goal, but never did.
The influences in making my conclusion include seemingly defeatist advice like “things could always be worse” but more impactful is the Biblical prescription from Paul. In his letter to the Thessalonians he implores readers to “Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
The word Paul chooses is not “happy” in all circumstances, but “thankful.” This same word “thanks” is used when Jesus gives thanks at the last supper. The word for thanks in Greek is “eucharisteo” whose root “charis” means grace. He also gives us an important clue in the prior sentence as to how this seemingly impossible task of being thankful could be possible. He writes, “Never stop praying.”
During prayer, we have the opportunity to lift up the circumstances which are working to pull us down. We can discover a perspective that as an eternal being, living forever, which has already started by the way, we can see all earthly circumstances as temporary.
When entering into a time of prayer we discover first, that we are praying to something; to the Creator, to God the Father, to the Holy Spirit, to Christ the Son. We instantly can realize that we are not alone in this time of sharing. We next contemplate the immense gulf separating us from the divine Creator. We next imagine the sheer vastness of His creation. We reflect on the range of complexity of creation, from clusters of galaxies spinning silently around the cosmos to the smallest red spider almost invisibly scurrying on the ground before my bowed head.
We think of those we should raise in prayer, from gratitude for those valiantly serving, to relief for those needlessly suffering, and it makes our concerns smaller by comparison. We reaffirm our relationship with the one true God and with that, enjoy the privileges of belonging, of oneship, of acceptance just as we are, and bask in a brief moment of true, unconditional love.
We may find ourselves bending under the weight of the appreciation we feel for the selflessness of a God who would give His Son, exposing Him to and demanding He take on His shoulders the weight of a trillion-billion fallen creatures, all the brokenness of the world and of the galaxy in which it floats, and of the universe itself. Relief can be glimpsed as we grasp that all that has fallen short has been brought level again. We can now measure up to God’s standard through the gift of grace through his Son Jesus.
Prayer gives us the chance to see that despite current circumstances, despite current shortfalls of our wants, dreams, and desires, we have the most important possession of all. We might not enjoy wealth, nor health, nor power, nor peace, nor insulation from hurt, but we house within us the very Spirit of God.
Source of all virtues and dispeller of all vice, this Spirit grants us the ability to pray boldly for our loved-ones, our enemies, and ourselves. The Spirit shows us the work which lays within us as we continue our sanctification, while reassuring us of the security of our eternal salvation.
Buoyed by these enlightenments, we gain the power to find the happiness which comes from within ourselves, because the Spirit lives within us. When we view ourselves from the perspective that we are a divine creation, we can more patiently endure the fact we are currently in a broken form, living in a broken world. We have assurance that the destination for our life line is reuniting with the Creator, made possible through His gift of grace.
Prayer is not a “one and done” experience. Prayer is a warm and dry refuge in my unseen storms, an oasis in a desert of disappointments. It is available to me on a moment’s notice and capable of transporting me and all my worries far from my current circumstances and right to the edge of the Kingdom of God.
Happiness to me is seeing my circumstances and deciding with the Spirit’s help to respond with thanks. While I can’t help but invent new aspirational images and ideas that I hope will make me happy, unless I acknowledge the true source of joy, the attainment of happiness will always be just out of reach. To be a child of God is to use prayer to help saturate your being with the Spirit of God. Prayer can help us remember this relationship, strengthen this connection, and finally allow us to be thankful in all circumstances. And that makes me happy.