Why God Can’t Make Us "Happy"
We get the word happy from an old Norse word “hap,” which I am told means luck or chance. It’s where we get words like happening, haphazard, happenstance, and happen. Some times we have good “hap” and sometimes we have bad “hap.” It just seems to happen that way.
People look for happiness in all kinds of other places besides love. They may try money, success, sex, power, drugs, alcohol, fame, knowledge, or any combination of these and other potential sources. They seem to work for a while, but the Law of Diminishing Returns says we will need progressively stronger doses of our “happy” to reach the same level until we ultimately reach the point where our "happy" is powerless, or it kills us.
Here's the Secret. Happiness comes from the world, and frankly, it comes from a world that doesn’t care if you are happy or not unless it can sell you something to help for a while. Now before you get discouraged, I have good news for you. There’s something that is even better than happiness. It is called JOY! People think joy and happiness are the same thing, but they are actually opposites.
Happiness comes from the outside, but joy comes from the inside. Happy comes and goes, but joy just keeps hanging in there. Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit. Jesus never told anyone to be happy; He told them to have joy. The world can only give happy; but joy comes from within. God is the inventor and source of joy. He has placed a measure of His joy in each of us, and the world can never, ever, take it away.
Happy always costs you something, but joy is a free gift.
By now you probably know another thing God can’t do. God can’t make you happy. If He can’t do it, does it make sense to look for happiness in the world or from someone else? Forget about looking for happiness. It comes and goes like the wind; find joy instead.
So where does one find joy? If you were thinking there’s probably a Pastor Jerry list for joy seeking, you would be right. It is a short list and the guidelines are similar to the ones needed for unconditional love discussed in Chapter 11.