There is a movie starring Will Smith and his son Jaden, called "The Pursuit of Happyness". It is based on the true story of a homeless salesman named Chris, who struggles financially while trying to raise his son. Chris eventually manages to become a successful stock broker.
Most people find the film inspiring, because Chris does not give up despite all the problems he faces.
The title of the movie comes from a phrase in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which states that everyone should have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the core of the so-called "American dream". The word "happiness" is deliberately misspelled in the title of the movie, apparently to hint at the fact that what most people are pursuing is not true happiness.
The "American way" to "happiness" is essentially selfish and materialistic, and it is pretty much what happens in the movie, a literal "rags to riches" story that inspires anyone who wants to pursue happiness in material things. But the movie also hints that the main character, Chris, missed the point.
Throughout the movie, Chris endured life on the streets while showing love and care for his son. It involved many valuable and meaningful moments between them... moments which his son would surely cherish in the future, despite the struggles. At the end of the film however, one is left wondering if the lessons learned from those moments had been lost, through Chris' focus on being a successful stock broker, which ultimately earned him millions of dollars. In his pursuit of happyness (spelled with a Y), he may have actually missed a much more genuine form of happiness.
A Jewish psychologist by the name of Viktor Frankl ended up in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. While he was there, he saw death all around him. He himself faced that threat every day. Because of his interest in psychology he tried to understand why some people seemed able to bear the situation better than others. He also saw that all of the things he previously held as valuable were stripped away: his material possessions, his wife, his health and even his chances of physical survival. He came to the conclusion that what people most need is not happiness, pleasure or even physical survival (since all these things are temporary and they can so easily be taken from us). But what mankind is really looking for is meaning... or purpose. Frankls noted that this desire for meaning is even stronger than physical needs like food and water, since people who lost their sense of meaning and purpose in the concentration camps often chose suicide, while those who saw meaning in their circumstances were able to bear the hardships, sometimes even joyfully.
All of us instinctively search for meaning in life. The real problem is that the things people think they will find meaning in, are often the things that actually take meaning away. For example, as we have so often pointed out in our community, we are promised by the world that money is going to add meaning to our lives by opening up important doors. So we dedicate ourselves to making money, only to discover, perhaps too late, that even if we were to gain the whole world, it would most likely take our very soul from us in the process. Your soul may best be described as your purpose for existence. We tell ourselves that money is only a means to a more honourable end, but the things we buy do not satisfy either. Our purpose for existing must be more than pleasure just as it must be more than possessions or popularity. But those goals may become substitutes for a purpose that transcends life, and, as such, they can become distractions for many years, and whole lifetimes.
And here is where true happiness starts out sounding like the exact opposite of fake happiness. Jesus said "Happy are those who mourn." In fact, just about everything he said, challenged the direct route to secular happiness. Over and over we discover that God's way up is down. He tells us to forsake everything we own, our family ties, our pride and reputation, and the false concepts regarding our own lives. He says that if we try to gain our life, we will lose it, and that it is only in losing our life in service to him and others that we will truly find it.
He challenges what has been expressed as the first commandment in the Satanic Bible, which is to "do as you will". He tells us to do just the opposite. If we are to follow him, we must deny OURSELVES... DAILY... that's right, every day... today, tomorrow and the following day, we have to NOT focus on what we want to do; rather, we should take up our crosses and follow him to an agonising death of one sort or another.
Most of us find this so shocking that we toss it out immediately. Even those who can quote the verses, do little to apply them in our day to day lives. But tragically, by ignoring Jesus, we effectively continue to lose our souls one day at a time, rather than ever gaining his true happiness. We continue to apply the devil's formulas in our pursuit of happyness, ultimately destroying the purpose for which we were created.
Our community is not exempt from this error. Both as individuals and collectively, we sometimes seek meaning and purpose in the wrong things. We focus on how much lit we get out (and the donations that they often bring in); we measure our usefulness by how many tasks we complete; we measure success in terms of how many people respond to our evangelistic efforts, how many members we get, or how many leave; we get bogged down in arguments over petty issues; consumed with our own opinions and rules. And when such measures of success do not eventuate, we become depressed and fall away, looking for meaning elsewhere.
One of the most helpful exercises as a Christian, when things seem out of whack with our lives, when we start having doubts about what we are doing, or when we feel like we have lost our first love, in a spiritual malaise, is to just open the Bible, go to the four Gospels, and put our focus on what Jesus did and taught. It is something we constantly tell others to do, yet we often fail to do it ourselves. If we did, we would not feel so bad when we are persecuted, when people discriminate against us, when we are insulted and lied about, as we would actually believe Jesus that these are encouraging signs that we are doing the right thing. He tells us that persecution is a time when we can fully and truly rejoice. Even when we see others leaving, in pursuit of a lesser happiness, we would see that Jesus predicted these things. There will be tribulations, but they will be followed by epiphanies. Tensions between ourselves would not be proof of failure, but rather, they would be reminders of God's grace, opportunities to learn more about love, and channels through which others can be inspired.
The path to life is narrow, and only a few will find it, because only a few can resist the wide path, with all the pleasures and plastic happyness that it offers.
There is a better day coming, and it even transcends life. Fear not those who can kill the body, but fear him who can destroy both the body and the soul in hell. God's will is the key to it all, if we would just hunger for more and more of his will every day.
Some see God as a cruel tyrant who wants to take away everything that could make them happy. But the opposite is true.
How many things have we done in the past that we now regret and are ashamed of? Wouldn't we love to be able to go back and re-live those moments when we settled for less than our highest purpose for being here on Earth? Well, we have today, to make that change... to start living it in the new way that Jesus has taught us. Don't let anyone fool you with talk about you needing to love yourself, or talk about your need to feel good. Just fall on the rock, take up your cross, or whatever other analogy you may choose to describe trusting God enough to experiment with his somewhat uncomfortable formulas for finding true happiness.
Above all, Jesus tells us to love one another... to lay down our lives for each other.
But how can we say that we love God whom we haven't seen if we cannot stand to be with our brothers and sisters in Christ whom we have seen? How can we practice all those verses in the New Testament that talk about loving one another, bearing each other's burdens, forgiving one another, serving one another... and all the other "one another's" if we choose to just do "our own thing" instead?
What would our lives look like if we decided right now to take an even more radical approach to the Cornerstone of Christ's teachings? What if we would all commit ourselves, right now, to just sitting still, at the feet of Jesus, and listening to what HE says is the true meaning of life? What if we laid down all our defenses, and asked for broken hearts before God, and genuine love for one another?
Can we sit quietly for even one minute and contemplate that, praying for the grace to keep doing it throughout the rest of this day?
