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The Search for Joy
Different foci on living have attracted mankind’s (man’s) attention over the years. Political, religious, and economical perspectives have all taken a turn in being primary for man. The political man emphasized ruling, the religious man emphasized religion, and the economic man emphasized status, wealth, and success. However, in recent decades, the psychological man seems to dominate the perspective of the Western society. Part of the psychological perspective includes self-interest and pursuit of happiness. Man chases after what will make him happy. The world’s search for happiness includes possessions, honor, and wealth which according to Ecclesiastes 6:2 is a gift from God. Man can easily exceed the just, usual, and fond…
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Stop Saying Christianity Doesn’t Make You Happy
This week, a Gallup Poll has reported pretty dismal mental health ratings, adding to a year full of statistics about depression, suicide, porn, stress and substance abuse. 2020 stinks, and the world doesn’t know how to handle it. So can we please stop adding to the problem by saying that Christianity doesn’t make Christians happy? I know, I know. When we say this, we’re trying to explain that we–and our happiness–aren’t the point. We’re reminding one another that our faith doesn’t protect us from life in a broken world. We’re saying that the abiding joy in Christ is substantially different than flurries of happiness that may come. These theological truths…
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What Did the Philosophers Know and When Did They Know it? Part 2
Jesus told Pilate, “For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world – to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). “Therefore see to it that the light in you is not darkness” – Jesus (Luke 11:35). While skimming a book I’d previously read entitled “The Great Philosophers: From Socrates to Foucault”, a quick summary of influential philosophers, I was sometimes struck by the darkness and futility of their ideas. Yet I was open to seeing truths that might be found within the shadows so to speak. I gleaned what truthful ideas I could from…
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Prosperity: The Devil’s Gospel
Some of us feel entitled to the “good life,” equating hardship with a life gone awry. The prosperity gospel aligns with this ideology—that God ordains health and wealth for Christians. “Name-it-and-claim-it” theology further perpetuates this notion that Christians can up their luck by speaking positivity over situations to alter outcomes. Taking bible verses out of context, and cutting and pasting them to make crowd-pleasing sermons, prosperity gospel preachers apple-polish the gospel (Rom. 16:17-18). Pastor Joel Osteen has preached, “Maybe Alzheimer’s disease runs in your family genes, but don’t succumb to it. . . . If you’ll rise up in your authority, you can…
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Making Room for Pain
“You’re not jumping two phone books high! Jump higher. Let these kids know how much you love Jesus!” And then I felt it—the water gun hit my back, mingling with the copious amount of sweat already drenching my t-shirt. Yes, that’s right—a water gun. Camp staff members were squirted if they didn’t jump high enough to show their enthusiastic love for Jesus while welcoming the kids to camp in 100-degree sticky heat. It was the start of a very difficult six weeks for me. In the midst of what my doctor diagnosed as chronic depression, I had been hired to serve as camp counselor for middle school girls. I had…
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Lead by Loving
If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any one of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. . . A negative term has been substituted from a positive . . . The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. — C.S. Lewis The poignant words struck my soul. What if we lived and led by Lewis’ observation? What if…
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Looking for Happiness today?
Just yesterday I learned that science now affirms two key ingredients that lead to greater happiness: gratitude and kindness. My granddaughter shared these insights with me from her current college studies in psychology. Interestingly the class reviewed scientific experiments that demonstrate the accuracy of those contentions. Additionally, it has been demonstrated as well that verbal expressions of gratitude, actually saying the words aloud, multiply the impact of thankfulness. Our conversation leads me to reflect as we celebrate today, Memorial Day. Established following the brutal Civil War, Memorial Day honors the lives sacrificed for our freedom. Since the Civil War, Americans have given their lives serving in the Spanish-American War, World…
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“The Confessions of St. Augustine” (A Conservative Christian Goes to College, part 18)
“Whom could I find to reconcile me to you? Was I to seek the help of angels? By what prayer, what sacraments? Many people in their attempts to return to you and not being able to do so by their own strength have, so I hear, tried this way and have fallen into a desire for strange visions and have become, rightly, the victim of delusions…. They were seeking a mediator through whom to become clean, but this was not he. It was the devil” – “The Confessions of St. Augustine”, Book X, Chapter 42.[1] World Religions Class. It was time for our book reviews to be presented in front…
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The Marriage-Go-Round
It’s no secret that marriages are in trouble, no less in Christian homes than in any others. I regularly hear of marriages ending because one or both of the partners just isn’t happy or decides they want someone else. Hearts are scarred, children are torn between parents, and happiness doesn’t always ensue with someone new. In fact, the same struggles often follow in the new relationship. I have found that marriage moves in cycles, much like a merry-go-round. So often today, however, the partners choose to cut the trip short before they make it back around to the other side. Instead of expecting the best of one another and marriage,…
