Solomon referred to envy as a "rottenness of the bones," (Proverbs 14:30) a disease which consumes us from the inside out. Other emotions such as guilt, worry, and anger act the same way, inevitably producing symptoms and diseases such as cancer, heart conditions, and other physical problems.
One of the most widespread of these negative emotions is unforgiveness; the inability to effectively deal with the past. These stress from unforgiveness affects not only our relationships, but also the very essence of our lives, effectively killing us and smothering our joy.
Most of our physical problems have spiritual root causes which can be readily discovered and addressed. Treating only the physical symptom is like painting over rust; the original basis for the disease remains, and it may eventually allow the disease to return. Many of our Health issues are amplified by sadness as well.
Think about this: could God use a disease in the physical body, which lasts only for a few years, to draw our attention to a disease in our spiritual body, which lasts forever? He surely could, and does. But allowing our physical body to be healed without attending to the higher priority of our spirit could remove the motivation to address the spititual condition, so God usually institutes a "Healing Plan."
A program of healing prayer usually works out more like this:
1. God takes the first step and quickly improves the physical condition.
2. Improvement slows down until the prayee addresses possible spiritual conditions.
3. Improvement accelerates, then may hit another "spititual plateau," and the 1-2 cycle repeats.
God can also instantly take a person from "sick" to "healed," a process He's just as good at today as He was 2000 years ago.
Of course, the optimum situation is to examine ourselves for needed spiritual cleansing and growth while we are still healthy, but we have to begin where we are at: here and now. He is also an expert at turning sadness into JOY!
Here is the beginning of Chapter 7 from my book, "What God Can't Do," available at Amazon.com and at the links on the book page.
CHAPTER 7 Excerpts
Why God Can’t Make Us "Happy"
“And They All Lived Happy Ever After.” Everyone knows where this line is found. It’s usually how fairy tales end. Fairy tales are fun to read and often have a good moral. The problem is that as children, we pick up the idea that it is possible to “live happy ever after,” and a part of us still believes it as an adult.
I remember being the pastor between two hurting people and hearing, “He doesn’t make me happy any more,” or “I’m very unhappy with the way she has changed over the past year.” (I might have even had those thoughts myself once upon a time).
I kept hearing that word “happy” over and over again in counseling sessions. I was wondering how one word could cause so much pain when I came across an alternative definition of "happy" that changed everything I thought I knew about it.
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.
Sometimes others can “make” us hap-py for a while, but no one can do it forever. Even Prince Charming will eventually mess up and let Cinderella become temporarily un-hap-py, and vice-versa. Let’s face it. No one can live 100% “happy-ever-after” if another real person is involved.
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.
During the wedding ceremony I preformed for my nephew and his fiancé, I briefly mentioned the problems of trying to find happiness together and then told them to forget trying to find happiness in their marriage; that it wasn’t going to work. Now I hadn’t told them about this part of my blessing because I wanted it to be so shocking that they would never forget my words as long as they lived. From the look on their faces and of those in the audience it was having the desired effect.
I continued, “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.
“You see, 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.
“Search for joy in your love for each other, and rejoice in the unique creation that each of you are, knowing that God rejoices when He thinks of you both. Jenni, you have the only Kurt God will ever make (my brother, Kurt’s father, started chuckling) and Kurt you have the only Jenni God will ever make (awws from audience) so find joy in the precious uniqueness of each other. Search for joy in the gifts and talent He has given to each of you both, and the things you will accomplish together in life.”
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 do double duty: they are similar to the ones needed for unconditional love discussed in Chapter 11. (Continued)