Posted on 12/16/2009 5:55:24 AM PST by Patriot1259
"It can't be wrong when it feels so right." When Christian singer Debbie Boone crossed over onto the pop music charts in 1977 with "You Light Up My Life", it was these lyrics that made Christians really sit up and take notice. Does "feeling so right" really mean something must be right?
Happiness. We all want it. In fact, we demand it. Now. On our terms. We're just claiming what is ours by right, because the Bible promises it ... doesn't it? After all, "happy is that people, whose God is the LORD."....
(Excerpt) Read more at thecypresstimes.com ...
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - Ben Franklin
The Christian can see that he or she has insufficient power or resources for what He sees the Father wishing. This is wisdom to realize this and soon bend the knee before self sets in.
True happiness, for folks like us, is to be doing the Father's will and to be in His joy forevermore.
“For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. “ Jeremiah 29:11
I’m not reading anything in there that says “I” don’t have to contribute to my own path of Happiness. Use the tools God gives you; your faith, your health, your brains...and get bizzy! :)
I think the root of this type of thinking stems from Christians not reading their Bible, and instead reading only their little Bible book of promises. The one promise I never see in those books is 2 Tim 3:12 “Yes and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” No one likes this promise, but it’s a promise all the same, you can’t escape it, so don’t even try.
God wants you to be happy — but He understands that what YOU think will make you happy, often won’t. He wants you to be happy regardless of your circumstances ... there will be trials. Endure. True comfort and contentment, like faith, transcend circumstances.
SnakeDoc
My dad once told me that people who are happy all the time end up on the funny farm.
God sometimes allows us to expereience grief and sorrow, so we may comfort others who expereience grief and sorrow.
A heroine addict is happy while he is experiencing a fix. I’m sure Tiger Woods was “happy” during his string of affairs before he was found out. What people mean when they ask such question is “doesn’t God want me not to have to experience the consequences of my actions which happen to feel good for the moment?”. The answer to that is clearly no.
My pet peeve. People that tell me that God took my son so that I would better know how to comfort others. NO WAY.
I wonder how many of those that said that to you have lost children of their own. Those that have not simply need to keep their teeth locked and allow nothing to escape. They have neither the qualification nor the right to pretend to know what you feel nor what your perspective should be.
That angers me so much. We are admonished to to bear each other’s burdens, not slather over them with platitudes. It is the height of arrogance to think that we know the mind of God and His purposes in every situation. If we are able to help others because of something that has happened to us, it is the work of God in us that has brought it about.
God wants you to grow in Him. Whether or not you are happy about it is up to you.
As it’s often pointed out that the US Declaration of Independence has no legal standing, but more to the point, it lists as among the “unalienable rights” of man, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
*Not* obtaining happiness, but the pursuit of happiness. This is because happiness, in and of itself, is of little value in the present. It is of far more value in the past, as nostalgia, or in the future, as a goal.
Happiness is an empty state, a neutral state, a fleeting emotion. It is neither good nor bad, and all one can do when they are happy is look forward to the end of happiness, so you can get on with your life again.
More than anything else, being in a neutral state of happiness, a person can see the alternatives to happiness. If they have enough, do they want more than enough? Do they wish to cut back from enough for a while, to “toughen” themselves? Do they wish to seek a more transcendental form of happiness? Or revert to the state of unhappiness, and find the impulse to find happiness they had before?
Finally, do they want a rest from happiness itself? Quietude.
I like to point out that America is a happy place. But as such, many of its people live in an ivory tower of ignorance, feigning unhappiness over increasingly petty things, because they have no real unhappiness in their lives. This tends to weaken the spirit over time, and encourages both moral relativity and emotional softness.
We do not usually see people starving and dying in the gutter, brutal tyrants and whimsical cruelty. Denied this, but still wanting to self-indulgently suffer, we invent nonsensical slights to agonize over.
It has been remarked that of all the things we might do that would please heaven the most, the number one thing would be to stop suffering. That is, we have our lives to live, and in all our lives there will be sorrow and pain, victories and defeats, joy and sadness, all because that is the way life is supposed to be.
But in all of that, suffering is completely voluntary. An annoying add-on, an elaborate display of the worst elements of self-pity and self-importance. Suffering is a choice, and an indulgent choice at that. It is not seemly, and doesn’t even warrant the noble label of being a sin.
How petty is that?
The seven deadly sins, and the seven virtues each have a depth and purpose in life, but happiness and suffering dwell between them as the crossroads. Nothing much to do there, except to head in a new direction.
Yes. Yes. Yes. ;’ \
If I’m happy too long, I start getting nervous, I’m wondering from which direction the next brick is coming.
I’m most content on the level spot between happiness and sadness.
Thank God for unanswered prayers. ;0)
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
2nd Corinthians 1:3-4
Thank you
Troubles come for a variety of reasons, none are strictly speaking authored by God.
When Jesus returns, He won't be looking for our medals and toys; He'll be looking for our scars.
Don’t expect to be happy, and if you are, then it’s a bonus.
I never said He does. My point is that God comforts us in our troubled times so we may be a comfort to others when they have troubled times.
"Moral guidance can often sound like a collection of tired bromides when expressed in the abstract."
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