Why Aren’t Christians Known For Their Happiness?

Why aren’t Christians known for their happiness?

We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV

Let us leave sadness to the devil and his angels. As for us, what can we be but rejoicing and glad? FRANCIS OF ASSISI

WHEN OUR FACE TO the world is one of anger, misery, shame, cowardice, or defensiveness, the gospel we speak of doesn’t appear to be the good news of happiness. And we shouldn’t be surprised if people, both outside and inside the church, aren’t attracted to it. Why should they be?

Children who grow up seeing church as a morose, hypercritical place will turn their backs on it in their quest for happiness. Those who have found happiness in the church will usually stay or return.

Sadly, many non-Christian young adults today view Christ’s followers as “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental.”^a These words all describe unhappy people. (If the world judges us, so be it, but it shouldn’t be because we’re chronically unhappy.)

I see two extremes of Christians when it comes to happiness. Some immediately change the channel from the coverage of a hurricane, refuse to acknowledge sex trafficking and abortion, and ignore the sufferings of this world while grabbing on to superficial living. They look the other way when their marriages are in trouble or when their children choose wrong friends, because they don’t want to see or admit anything that might require empathy or hard work. They hold fast to their false notion that denying problems buys them happiness.

Other Christians are perpetually somber, never laughing or poking fun at themselves, rarely celebrating, and quick to frown when they see someone having fun. Shoulders sagging, they believe that happiness is ungodliness, and their calling in life is to be the one who doesn’t laugh at the joke. (Granted, there are some jokes the holy person should never laugh at, but the truly holy person will be a happy person, quick to laugh at humor that doesn’t dishonor God.)

Paul said he was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Sorrow and joy can and do coexist, for now. (Note that the “always” in this verse is applied to rejoicing, not being sorrowful. This means our lives should be characterized more by joy than by sorrow.)

If we constantly focus on all that’s wrong with the world, then sorrow or anger will be our default. But the apostle Paul, writing from prison in Rome, called on his fellow believers to rejoice in the Lord not periodically, but always (see Philippians 4:4). You rejoice not simply by reflecting on the fact that you should but by actually choosing to set your mind on what brings joy—Jesus and his love, the beauties of the world God has created, the daily kindnesses of God, the gifts and providential divine appointments he brings to us, people around us who help us, material provisions, food and drink and the ability to enjoy them, and a thousand other things in and around and over us.

When Puritan Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was only nineteen years old, he made a resolution that speaks volumes: “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigour, and vehemence . . . I am capable of.”^b

In the movie The Stepford Wives, husbands program “perfect” wives. Of course, these robotic wives are perfect only in the sense that they do whatever their husbands want. But what any good man really desires is a relationship with a real person who responds out of heartfelt love and happiness. Fake, programmed love or happiness is empty—in fact, it’s unreal. God doesn’t force happiness on us, nor does he call us to pretend we’re happy when we’re not. Rather, he invites us to enter his happiness and find it in him.

Parents repeat instructions to children because kids tend to miss it the first time. Hence Paul said, “Again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). He wanted to make sure we’d get it. Synonyms for happiness appear repeatedly throughout Scripture. If God says it enough, shouldn’t we get it? Still, most of us have failed to notice the cumulative force of the biblical revelation that we are to be consistently happy in God.

It’s not insensitive, unkind, or wrong for us to be happy! By being happy in Christ, we lay claim to the fact that God is bigger than the Fall and affirm that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ indwells us and will reverse the Curse and reign over a new universe. Our happiness shouts that our God is present with us and at work in the world every minute of every hour of every day. The narrower our view of God’s presence in this world—and in our daily lives—the less happiness we’ll experience.

Lord Jesus, you’ve told us repeatedly in your Word that we’re to be happy in you. When we are, we know it makes you happy. Help us remember our countless reasons for happiness and to share that good news with the world. Enable us to delight you and others with kind acts and cheerful words, which offer the bonus of delighting us, too.