Is It Possible To Separate Happiness From God?

Is it possible to separate happiness from God?

All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 15:15

Man was not originally made to mourn; he was made to rejoice. The Garden of Eden was his place of happy abode, and as long as he continued in obedience to God, nothing grew in that Garden that could cause him sorrow. CHARLES SPURGEON

HUMAN HISTORY IS the story of our desperate search for true and lasting happiness. Even those people who seem to “have it all” long for something more, often quietly giving up hope of ever finding real joy.

Psychiatrist Paul D. Meier writes,

I have had millionaire businessmen come to my office and tell me they have big houses, yachts, condominiums . . . , nice children, a beautiful mistress, an unsuspecting wife, secure corporate positions—and suicidal tendencies. They have everything this world has to offer except one thing—inner peace and joy. They come to my office as a last resort, begging me to help them conquer the urge to kill themselves.^a

In the midst of such hopelessness, God offers the good news of his transforming grace, mercy, love, and eternal happiness: “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge” (Revelation 22:17, NET).

Charles Darwin (1809–1882), near the end of his life, spoke of what he called his “loss of happiness”:

Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds . . . gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare. . . . Formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. . . . My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts. . . . The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness.^b

Darwin may not have traced his diminished happiness to his gradual change in worldview, but it’s likely that the naturalistic perspective he embraced gradually undermined his early delight in studying God’s creation, resulting in a joyless, machinelike indifference.

Thomas Traherne (1636–1674), an English poet and theologian, wrote, “Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God . . . you never enjoy the world.”^c

Yes, unbelievers can experience limited joy, but when we know and love the Creator, our heartfelt delight is magnified. Seeking happiness without God is like seeking water without wetness or sun without light.

In an 1847 letter to his father, Scottish author George Macdonald (1824–1905) wrote of the barriers he faced in turning to Christ:

One of my greatest difficulties in consenting to think of religion was that I thought I should have to give up my beautiful thoughts & my love for the things God has made. But I find that the happiness springing from all things not in themselves sinful is much increased by religion. God is the God of the Beautiful, Religion the Love of the Beautiful, & Heaven the House of the Beautiful—nature is tenfold brighter in the sun of righteousness, and my love of nature is more intense since I became a Christian. . . . God has not given me such thoughts, & forbidden me to enjoy them. Will he not in them enable me to raise the voice of praise?^d

Loving nature and beauty should indeed be enhanced by loving the God who made them and reveals himself in them—how could it be otherwise?

Living in Oregon, surrounded by stunning natural beauty and people who love and sometimes worship it, I often ponder the irony that my state and our neighbor, Washington, have among the lowest percentages of Christ-followers anywhere in the United States. According to a Gallup poll, Portland, Oregon, where Nanci and I and our children were born, is tied with Seattle and San Francisco for the highest percentage of “religiously unaffiliated” people in the United States.^e

So if happiness comes from God, does this mean people who live in Portland can’t be happy? No, because for the present, by God’s grace and kindness, people can reject God but still enjoy the benefits of his common grace, including loving relationships, natural and artistic beauty, and physical, emotional, and intellectual pleasure.

The bad news is that those who deny God are living on borrowed time. This temporary situation will come to an abrupt end (see Hebrews 9:27-28; Revelation 20:11-15).

After the termination of this life, we can have one of two combinations:

1. both God and happiness
2. neither God nor happiness

What we won’t be able to have is God without happiness or happiness without God.

Father, thank you for your common grace that allows everyone to enjoy the beauty of your creation. Thank you for your saving grace that allows us to see you as the one to whom those beauties testify. Thank you for your patience and mercy that allow us time and motivation in this life to seek you and experience your happiness.