Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Mt5.4 ESV
Yesterday I wrote a friend and said that happiness is a real treasure, and contentment seems one path to it. After all, what more could anyone want than lasting joy except maybe that those you love have it as well. But the reason contentment is only one path to happiness, is that discontentment with ones spiritual poverty is another. And, it is a path that will lead us to lasting joy. Christ tells us that those who are unhappy, who mourn the bankruptcy of their soul before God will find lasting happiness in His eternal comfort.
What this tells me is that happiness is more a state than an emotion. It is a state of blessedness, of being made right with God. And, as I live in this blessed state I will sometimes know sorrow and joy in the same moment. I will know moments of unhappiness with myself so that He may give me a deeper happiness as I grow to be more like Christ.
The person who runs from one feel good moment to the next, may know a kind of happiness, just as a stolen apple is sweet to a thief yet, not in the same way as to the one who did not steal it. The thief’s happiness does not negate its wrongness or the bitter end assigned to it by a just and good God. To be truly happy is to be blessed by Him and to know His favor. And, to be blessed by Him, we must first be unhappy with our own spiritual poverty. It is here in this mourning that we look to Christ and find eternal comfort and joy. This of course runs contrary to modern notions that we must love and accept ourselves in order to be happy. Such is the happiness of a thief and will be short lived. 4/10/2008 ts
Just me trying to be honest with God.
