Blessed By Happiness

Blessed by Happiness

Luke 19:29-40, Taught by Pastor Tom Lacey at Church on the Hill, March 24, 2024

Does life have to be just right before you’re happy? We say of course not, but let’s be honest. If things aren’t going our way, we have a hard time turning on the positive vibes. It’s not like we mean to be this way. It’s just natural. Or it’s learned. We’re busy, or we’re bored. We have important things on our mind, or we think of trivial matters. We have other people we’re worried about, so we feel powerless, concerned, anxious. Sometimes we think being stressed and burned out is the appropriate response to life as it is. After all, there are plenty of bad, tough, dangerous, concerning things going on all the time. A reasonable person should act rationally and accept that the world is a bit of a soul crusher and a spirit sapper and a heart breaker. Life is serious business—and happiness is, well, it’s for those who don’t comprehend the nature of things.

All that may be true, or most of it at least, may be true, but why then does Scripture say, “Take delight in the Lord, and you will receive the desires of your heart.” Take delight! Not remain reasonable. Take delight! Not be ready for the other shoe to drop. Take delight it says and not: remember how heavy life is. We’re supposed to take delight. Sometimes things are true, but something truer, something more important needs to win the day and our lives.

Clearly when scripture says it like this it means you can take delight or not take delight; and if you have the ability at one moment then you have the ability at another moment, and all moments. One could also rightly read this scriptural direction to consist of a temporal sequence: Take delight in the Lord, and (then) God will give you the desires of your heart. First, take delight, then a full heart. Maybe that’s too strongly put, or there isn’t a temporal sequence to this kind of thing. Maybe it’s only a matter of it telling us that a rightly ordered heart, someone who delights in the Lord more than in so many other possibilities, will have her desires fulfilled, will be blessed—and will know it. Those who can recognize when a sunny day is a sunny day are those who delight in the Lord.  

Scripture doesn’t say you are only to take delight in God, in the beauty of the morning, in the blessings of your life, when they’re running you over, and you can’t help be overwhelmed by how good life is. My gosh, if that’s the only time you’re putting up on the screen of your mind delightful thoughts then we want to change that.  

Almost any time is a good time to reshoot the scene from a black and white to a colorful production. Take delight. Change scenes. Switch the movie. Direct delight. Produce delight. Make your mind the place that transforms you. There’s a great Spanish proverb that goes, “Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.” That’s so true. Waiting until tomorrow—the notorious day that never comes—is an excuse that keeps us from rejoicing in life’s goodness and God’s bounty toward us.

I like what someone said, “I asked God to give me happiness, and God said, ‘No. I give blessings. Happiness is up to you.’”

Years ago, someone came up with something called a 100 Day Happiness Challenge. If you went for it, you would wear a wristband that said, “I’m happy.” What you did was when you realized you weren’t doing a happy dance, you had to switch the band over to your other wrist. I know it’s a bit gimmicky, but one thing is true—a long time can pass before we recognize how good things are.   

In fact, we should seek our happiness. Looking out for your happiness will no doubt mean you will be happier to live with, work with, drive with, go to bed with, wake up in the morning with, talk with, eat with. It’s not necessarily selfish to organize your time and pursuits around the importance of keeping your joy. It’s not selfish if what you’re doing actually works and isn’t misguided.

One person talked about how the pursuit of one hundred days of happiness changed her life. She wrote, “So nearly three months ago, I accepted the challenge to find 100 things to be happy about 100 days in a row. I have posted them on my Facebook and enjoyed watching my friend post hers. And for a while it was just fun. Lots of pictures of my husband, my pets and my pets and … my pets…. Then I realized that after one month of ‘being happy,’ of working on this challenge, I had spent more than 20 hours in the library working on my dissertation. I’d filled pages and pages of sources in my bibliography. I’d found a way back into my work. And so I persisted in my practice.

I found time to start doing my breathing practices more often. As a result, I slept better. I also found other regular practices that made my life better. Chamomile tea before bed with my husband on our deck as we catch up with each other, walking to work rather than parking as close to the door as I can, and eating different varieties of apples each day. All of these things make my days more fulfilled and as a result, happier. I am nearly done with my bibliography, caught up on grading, (and) have a happier husband because I spend time with him and sleep.”

You can’t wait to get everything perfect before you take delight. If you do, then happiness won’t be easy to find. One transformed moment at a time. One changed thought at a time. Not perfection but transformation.

In our passage we see it’s a good day. The people are pumped. No one is questioning that Jesus will vanquish the Romans and free the Jews from their cruel rule. “Of course he will! Have you seen what this guy has done? He’s healed lepers, made the blind see, fed thousands. And he’s not afraid of religious leaders.” So, Jesus gets the red-carpet treatment as he makes his way into Jerusalem. No crown of thorns or angry mobs or frightened followers. Just Jesus on a cuddly donkey, cheered by the crowd on a sunny day. There were probably butterflies floating around, maybe a rainbow in the sky, even a bluebird on his shoulder singing a happy tune.

Have you ever had a day like that? Those are good days, aren’t they! Days when your knees don’t creak when you get out of bed, the coffee tastes just right, gas has dropped a few cents a gallon and you catch all the green lights. I love those red-carpet days. Those days don’t happen enough, do they? Good times don’t last forever. You know the stories of lottery winners who after years of bounty later become destitute or deep in debt, whose lives are ruined by what seemed like such a good thing at the time.

We’ve probably experienced that fleeting nature of the good life. The followers of Jesus will move from triumph to tragedy, from the red carpet to the bloody cross, in just a matter of days, and our lives can turn that quickly, as well. Days that started out healthy and ended with a bad diagnosis. Days where we started with a job and ended unemployed. Days that began filled with love but ended filled with anger and arguments, or worse. Many experience days like these. And when life takes that turn, we may question why? What did we do to deserve this? What happened to the good times? Why is my parade being rained on? This is natural but be careful. We don’t want to think of ourselves as victims. We often had more potential and responsibility and capability and accountability and resources and opportunity than we were willing to give ourselves.

We’re not victims. We’re victors! We don’t want to see ourselves any other way. This isn’t always easy, however. Tom was 82-years-olds. His pastor got a call one day that Tom was in the hospital, so he went to visit him. He says, “While we talked, I learned that this was the first time in 82 years that Tom had been hospitalized. ‘What a good life!’ I said to Tom, the 82-year-old. He said with a sigh, ‘I know, I’m stunned, too. I knew it would happen someday. I just didn’t think it would happen this soon!’

While we might be able to relate to Tom’s disillusionment, it’s better to remember we were never promised that life would be easy or pain-free. It’s just that at some point many of us came to expect it this way. We have it in mind that the good stuff is our God-given right—it’s the rule. It’s the norm. It’s to be expected. But whenever anything is expected, we no longer value it.

Jesus says in John’s gospel, “In this world you will have trouble.” Not, “You may have trouble” or “Every once in a while, something not so good could happen.” He says, “You will have trouble.” Isaiah says, “All are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.” In the letter of Peter, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.”

The truth we learn from scripture and from Jesus’ triumphal entry is that in this life good times are to be savored because they’re bookended by less than good times. Some of Jesus’ followers were surprised when he didn’t turn out to be the king they wanted him to be. Their cries of “Long live the king!” quickly turned to “Crucify him!” and the crown they were ready to place on his head became a crown of thorns. But Jesus knew how to celebrate what should be celebrated. So, when some were telling Jesus to put a lid on the people celebrating and shouting and singing and dancing, he told them if they don’t then even stones would shout out. It didn’t matter that this joy was only temporary. Today’s joy is right for today.  

Delight in the Lord. Pay attention to the blessings God is giving. Trust that God is working things out for you. Don’t be afraid of being happy. You deserve it. Get a smile and stick with it. Keep a tickle in your heart and a lift in your step. And celebrate all that God has given you.

Not that there aren’t people who may take this happiness right now thing to an extreme, like the old happy man sitting on his porch whom a passerby noticed. “Excuse me,” she said, “I couldn’t help noticing how happy you look. Tell me, what is the secret to your long, happy life?” “Well,” the man responded, “I eat fatty foods, never exercise. I also smoke three packs of cigarettes a day and drink about a couple of bottles of whiskey a week.”

“Wow,” the women said. “And how old are you?” “Twenty-eight.”

Take delight in the good things of God. We receive blessings—it’s up to us to be happy, today, not “tomorrow.”

Can the church say Amen?