It's Good Work If You Can Get It

“Living on the surface and in the present bereft of strong echoes of the past, we are (occasionally) happy, but rarely truly joyous.” --- Miroslav Volf

Everybody wants to be happy.  We live in a country where the pursuit of happiness is written into our DNA – the pursuit, but not necessarily the attainment.

I want to be happy.  I want my wife to be happy, and my children.  Why, I want everyone to be happy.  If only there were a formula we could follow, or an elixir we could drink, or . . . wait a minute . . . Every book store has a section of shelves filled with books that promise just such a formula for happiness.  Countless substances we ingest or drink, we do so in hopes of a buzz of happiness.  But if there was a formula or substance that worked, don’t you suppose we would have found it by now?

Might I suggest a different pursuit?  Instead of seeking after what makes you happy, which at most is a fleeting experience, why not pursue something else?  Like love.  Like service to others.  It is simple really.

As an experiment, spend a day seeking, not your own satisfaction, but the satisfaction of your spouse.  Spend a week affirming the work of your colleagues rather than tooting your own horn.  Spend a Saturday doing what your children want to do instead of hauling them around with your own agenda.  Instead of watching tired reruns at the end of the day, write some notecards of appreciation to your elderly relatives. 

All of these suggestions are not about the pursuit of happiness, at least not for yourself.  But don’t be surprised if you find something better as a result – joy.

The quote above by Miroslav Volf, suggests that happiness is superficial, but that joy is deep - built through the richness of experience.  Our circumstances can change in the blink of an eye, but if there is depth to our lives, relationships that have lasted through years and decades, then joy might be possible no matter what our circumstances.  I believe in living fully in the present moment, but this moment is enriched by my past experiences, particularly through the relationships I have had.  And the anticipation of those relationships continuing into the future are an additional blessing that can sustain and encourage joy, no matter what my outward circumstances might be.

Better than happiness, I wish you joy.  And joy comes from nurturing relationships that last through time.  This is nothing new.  There is no secret formula, nor elixir. 

Huey Lewis and The News sang, 

“I want a new drug . . . one that makes me feel like I feel when I’m with you.”  

You see?  Relationship.  That’s what matters, and that’s what leads to joy.

Relationships take work, I know, but as David Wilcox says, “It’s good work, if you can get it.”

A Matter of Life or Death

One of the main reasons I write this blog is because I want to talk about Jesus to the world.  Most of my work – as teacher, pastor, preacher – is aimed at people who already know Jesus, love Jesus, and want to follow Jesus (if though, sometimes, slowly and reluctantly). 

But out there in internet land are billions of people for whom Jesus is . . . well, I don’t know what you’re all thinking about out there when you do think of Jesus.  So many, I suspect, have a rather casual acquaintance with Jesus – someone to admire, someone whose example is noteworthy – but you are not ready to make the claim that Christians do – Lord, Savior, Christ, Son of God?

I was right there with you for several years of my life.  In my early 20’s I had become a respectful agnostic.  I had grown up the son of missionaries, with a Methodist preacher father, and while I was certainly influenced by the example of Jesus, I had turned my back on all the God-talk of my parents, and cast the church aside for sure.  How could any thinking person believe all that stuff?  I had read Bertrand Russell, and convinced myself I was too sophisticated for religion.

Hah!  Looking back I shake my head at how naïve I was.  Some of history’s greatest minds were unreservedly Christian.  Why?  Not because they came rationally to a conclusion that could be proven, but because they somehow encountered the living God.  I believe that happened to me.  Not in a burning bush, or struck-by-lightning-kind-of-way, but in a growing awareness that there was an authenticity to the life of Jesus – an integrity of word and deed that was unmatched in human history – and I sensed that his presence was still with me, with us, in some indefinable way.  And more importantly, I wanted that same sense of authenticity in my own life, so I made the decision to follow Jesus.  It was not a decision based on reason, but a hunch.

I only partially understood what following Jesus meant back then.  I know better now.  To follow Jesus is not without its pain (the cross is a vivid reminder of what following Jesus means).  But to follow Jesus is also a joy that the world cannot give or take away (the resurrection can be understood as a metaphor for that joy).

Some of you out there think that Christians are only concerned about heaven and hell.  So sad that you have perceived the gospel through the words of too many radio and TV preachers who are but caricatures of the real thing.  Heaven and hell act as symbols for life and death.  The gospel invites us to live, as Jesus says, “abundantly.” (John 10:10)

I am convinced that all of us are either living or dying.  We make decisions every day that are either life-giving or life-taking.  Sometimes by the choices we make the life we are taking is someone else’s.  Sometimes the life we are taking is our own (you know who you are).

But there are those who regularly, consistently, make life-giving decisions.  You speak words that encourage and affirm.  You take actions that enhance the lives of others, sometimes at sacrifice to yourself, and yet it seems a small price to pay.  Such actions prove the paradox of Jesus’ teaching that it is in giving our lives that we find life, as St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “it is in giving that we receive.”  And once in a while there are those words and deeds are in such harmony with each other that we are all ennobled by their example --- we see LIFE in them.

This is what God seeks to give us in Jesus – life to the full.  Life without guilt (forgiveness of sins).  Life without worry (trust).  Life with purpose (sacrifice for others).  Life full of joy (blessing and abundance).

Each Sunday I preach to a congregation.  Each Sunday I believe that what I have to say matters.  Indeed, it is a matter of life and death.  We are all, each one of us, either living or dying.  Jesus came that we may have life.  Why would you NOT choose to follow him?