From Sampler to Sower

(Recently, one of my students texted me a question that I couldn’t answer.  Not so much that I didn’t know what to say, but rather that every time I got ready to say something, I said to myself, “Yeah, but what about…”  After spending some time wrestling with it, here’s where I landed.  Below you’ll find my response, posted with the student’s permission.)

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You asked me “Is it possible to ‘do everything right’ according to the Bible, as far as living a Christlike life and be unhappy?”

I don’t know if you realize just how hard a question that is to answer, though if you manage to read all of this you might get a sense of it.

It’s difficult on two levels.  First it’s difficult because one has to wonder if it’s even possible to do everything right. Phrases like “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” “No one’s perfect,” and “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” come immediately to mind. Fortunately our acceptance in the eyes of God does not rest on perfect performance.

But before we just write off the possibility of doing the right thing, we should probably point out some other Biblical phrases.  Things like “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.” Or “But when you are tempted, God will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” Or “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”

Just because we know that we ourselves are prone to fail and fall, we shouldn’t give up on trying to do the right thing.

So back to the question “Is it possible to do everything right.”  It might be a controversial spin on things, but I’m going to go with “Yeah, it is.”  A couple of quick but important provisos though:

#1 It’s only because of God’s grace. Philippians 2:13 says it is God who works in us, making it possible for us to will and to act according to his good purposes.  Any success I may have in obeying God is ONLY because of him.

#2 No one (save Jesus himself) has done it yet. The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.  And the guy who wrote that was the same guy that wrote “And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.“  Even Paul had to admit that his track record wasn’t perfect.

The question of our obedience can’t be one of past performance – we’ve already ruined that record already. It probably can’t even be about future performance, because who knows what we will do?  And just when we think we know what we will do because we’ve mastered things we realize just how true the Proverb “Pride comes before the fall” really is.

The question must be: “Am I obeying God right now?”

So, to your real question: “Can I be obeying God and still be unhappy?”

I’ve been going around in circles on this all day today, and I’ve even had some Twitter and Facebook friends running the laps with me.

I can tell you my gut instinct on the question:  Of course it is possible!  The Bible is filled with examples of people obeying God who still faced suffering.

Look at Job. He was the first example to come to my mind.  The guy had obedience down.  The Bible says of him: “This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.“  And yet he’s become the posterchild for suffering.  There were lots of times you could have asked him “Are you happy right now” and he probably would have thrown a pus covered piece of pottery at you.

A couple of my friends suggested the example of Paul. Read his curriculum vitae in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 and tell me he was always happy.  (Seriously, read it.  I dare you!)

Or look at Jesus himself, struggling so much with what he was asked by His father to do that he sweat drops of blood.  You might be able to pass crying off as “happy tears” but I don’t think you can make a similar claim for blood-sweat.  And, what’s more, Jesus told his followers “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.”

Hardly a prediction of happiness.

But then there are some other things the Bible says that keep nagging at me from the back of my mind.

Things like Galatians 5:22, “But the fruit of the Spirit is … joy….”  Or John 13:17: “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed (happy) if you do them.”

There’s the story of Job, who was profoundly unhappy for a time, but obeyed and was rewarded.  The Bible says “The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.”

Or there’s Paul: The same guy who went through so much suffering, wrote the words “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance.”

And then there’s Jesus.  Jesus said “I have come that [you, his sheep] may have life, and have it to the full.” And “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

Of course, my first reaction is to say “Yeah, but there’s a big difference between joy and happiness.  Jesus promises joy, but not necessarily happiness.”

But is that really true?

The Greek language had a variety of words for happiness, as does our English.  Among them are:

agalliaomai: to celebrate or be glad.  This word appears to have been coined to capture an Old Testament idea of the happiness someone feels when they talk about God and what He has done.  It’s not a very common word, and I’m not sure reflecting on it would be very helpful.

eudaimonia:  This is the Greek word typically translated as happiness. It is very significant in the philosopy of Socrates, who (at least according to Plato) said the purpose of virtue is to bring about happiness.  Of course, happiness for Socrates and the other Greek philosophers who followed in his wake was not just a touchy-feel good sentiment.  Rather it was fairly specific – eudaimonia is often translated as “human flourishing” to avoid emotional confusion.  It is the realization of our human potential.

chara: This is the Greek word typically translated as joy.  It’s the word in Greek associated with rejoicing and merriness.  Interestingly while we typically think of joy as a particularly religious concept, as in the ability to be content no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, the Biblical concept is more secular.  Whereas agalliaomai is rejoicing in God, chara is the celebration of anything that makes us rejoice.  So when a poor widow finds a coin she lost, she calls her friends over to celebrate.  That word is chara, not agalliaomai.

Finally, there is the word makarios.  This is perhaps the highest concept of happiness in Greek.  In classical Greek, the word is used almost exclusively to describe the existence of the gods, who live far above human care and concern, a life without struggles or labor.  It’s the kind of life one finds in heaven. In fact, Aristotle distinguishes between eudaimonia and makarios, saying that a life of makarios is available only to the God’s who live in theoria – a life of pure contemplation without any labor, where as the best that human beings can hope for is eudaimonia, the realization of our potential as a result of our hard work.

I suppose one should include hedone (from which we get our English word “hedonism”) in there somewhere.  It is typically translated as pleasure, and interestingly, to my knowledge appears in the New Testament only in a negative sense, like in Luke 8 where the “pleasures of this life” choke the life out of the seed that fell among the thorns.

Still with me?  I think it will be worth it.

Obviously the Bible talks about chara, or joy. In fact, in the verses I quoted above, chara is the word typically used.  One of the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit is chara.  Paul says our suffering gives us reason for chara.  Jesus wants his chara to remain in us, and for that chara to be complete.

There really is the sense that even in the midst of struggle, even in circumstances that might make us unhappy, we have the opportunity to rejoice because we see the bigger thing that God is doing.  It’s a joy that’s bigger than our problems and finds its root, not in the happenings around us, but in the God we serve.

Somehow I think you were asking for something other than that though.

What about eudaimonia - the highest happiness made available to human beings according to Aristotle, the happiness that comes from realizing our full human potential?

Interestingly enough, to my knowledge that word is never used in the New Testament.  Jesus promises us joy.  But not that kind of happiness.  In fact, rather than flourishing, sometimes life will seem like we are really struggling just to survive.

However, if you were reading really carefully, you might notice there is one New Testament verse I cited above that didn’t fall into either of these categories of chara and eudaimonia.  The promise of John 13:17 – “Now that you know these things, you will be happy if you do them.”  The word translated there is makarios.  The New Testament goes from chara, the happiness of celebration, and skips right over the world’s idea of the human ideal, eudaimonia, and promises us the kind of happiness previously thought only available to the gods, makarios.  And it’s not just found in that one verse.  Each of the well-known beatitudes promise makarios kind of happiness.

The result of the Christ-like life, in the end, is the kind of happiness only the gods get to enjoy.

On the other hand, we get into dangerous waters if we try to use happiness as the measuring stick of our Christianity.  Just because we are going through something that makes us unhappy doesn’t necessarily mean that God’s displeased with us.  Look at Job.  Look at Paul.  Look at Jesus.  They were being perfectly obedient, and still suffered unhappiness.

So, where does that leave us with your question?

Obviously, there are times and seasons when we will face suffering that leaves us far less than happy.  Even the makarios promises of the beatitudes acknowledge this.  “You are makarios when you mourn.“  “You are makarios when you are persecuted.“  Even the fully committed, fully obedient Christian faces time when they go through suffering and sadness.  And what’s more, the Bible seems to indicate that following Jesus often leads us straight into those times.  The way of Jesus is the way of suffering.  Yet somehow, through it we are promised makarios happiness.

The best I can make sense of this is this way (and I think we’ve talked about this before):  Everyone suffers. Everyone faces times of hardship and sadness.  It’s a part of the human condition.  You’re going to experience sadness either way.

Tragically, a lot of our suffering is meaningless. We go through a lot of pain for no other reason that we made a mess of things with our choices and now we have to suffer the consequences.  It didn’t HAVE to be this way.  It is only this way because I chose this path.

What Jesus offers isn’t the chance for us to avoid suffering.  It’s the chance for our suffering to mean something. Our suffering, rather than being meaningless, becomes the way we are united with Jesus Christ.  It is the way we experience what it must have been like for him to suffer innocently (something we can’t experience when we suffer because of our own bad choices.)  It also becomes the way we participate in the redemption of the world.  Our suffering becomes the means by which we are able to comfort others going through similar suffering.

That’s the good news of the gospel, not that we get to skip suffering, but that our suffering can be redemptive!

And that gives us cause to rejoice.  It is a truth that makes us want to celebrate.

So, is it possible to be a fully obedient follower of Jesus and still be unhappy?

Yes.

For a season.

But God makes us some promises too.

First, we may be unhappy for a season, but it will also be for a reason, and that make it worth it.

Second, we won’t be unhappy forever.

See, I’ve saved the best promise for last.  Luke 6:21: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

We can debate the difference between joy and happiness until our fingers are calloused and our eyes blurry with strain.  We can argue whether happiness is a feeling or a mindset, or whether the best we can hope for is eudaimonia or makarios.  But you can’t mistake that promise.

You will laugh.

Maybe not today.  Maybe not tommorrow.  But Jesus himself promised.

You will laugh.

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That’s where I landed on this question.  But there are still things that make me say “Yeah, but what about…”

How about you?  What are your thoughts on the subject?  Care to run a few laps with me?