Tag: God

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What Will Make Us Truly Happy?

When you think about it, everything we do aims at one thing: happiness. Many things can make us happy to some degree, but we are always looking for that which will truly satisfy us. We want something that will give a lasting joy and peace that leaves no regret.

In spite of the fact that happiness is the goal, happiness generally eludes us. We pour our energy into a variety of things, hoping they will make us happy, but they always disappoint. In the United States, people in the tens of millions turn to anxiety and depression medication to help them cope with life. I am not judging those who choose to do that (it’s sometimes necessary, in my view). I merely point this out to demonstrate that happiness seems to elude us.

So, what is it that makes us truly happy? In spite of the fact that happiness is what we want, it’s surprising how little time we actually spend thinking about it. Ancient philosophers spent a lot of time thinking about this question. They did not want to pursue happiness haphazardly. They wanted to know what would really make people happy and how.

The Christian theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas summarized this ancient thought in his famous book, Summa Theologica, or Summary of Theology. In the second section of the first part of the work, in the second question (yeah, it’s not exactly what we could a “summary”), he discusses the question, what makes people happy? Aquinas helps us think about this question by first helping us see where we will not find happiness. Here’s what he says.

1. We won’t find happiness in money. Why? Because we seek money in order to be able to get something else. If we seek money to purchase something else, then money cannot be that which would make us happy. To discover what happiness is, we would have to ask, what do we want to do with the money? What do we think that it buys us? Continue reading “What Will Make Us Truly Happy?”

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Fulfilling Our Created Purpose in Everyday Life

God is not just for Sunday mornings, church or Bible reading. Life with God is an all day, every day affair. But how do we learn to see God’s presence in every day life?

We go back to creation. We see that God created culture and work life as the way in which Adam and Eve would live for him in this world. Understanding that, we can see our own work and play as glorifying to God.

In his magnificent poem, Paradise Lost, John Milton imagines how Adam might have seen the life of working, sleeping, and eating in light of His created purpose to live for God every moment. With a little imagination, we can apply this poem to our own eating, sleeping, and working. Here is a section from Book 4 of Paradise Lost. Here Adam describes the work they have to do and all the pleasures they can experience, noting that God’s one prohibition is not hard at all and surrounded by so many good things.

Sole partner and sole part of all these joys,
Dearer thy self then all; needs must the Power
That made us, and for us this ample World
Be infinitely good, and of his good
As liberal and free as infinite, [ 415 ] Continue reading “Fulfilling Our Created Purpose in Everyday Life”

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Why Do We Believe in the Trinity?

Here’s a series of questions and answers on this topic that I wrote many years ago for my congregation. If you have questions about why Christians believe in the Trinity, the doctrine that there is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, here is a brief explanation in a series of questions and answers.

1. What do we mean by God? God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. He made all things out of nothing by the word of His power. He preserves and governs all His creatures and all their actions.

2. What does the Bible reveal uniquely about who God is? It reveals that there are three persons in the one, infinite essence of God.

3. What do we mean by nature or essence? We mean what something is. For example, the essence or nature of a dog is that it is a dog, of a chair that it is a chair, of man that he is human.

4. What do we mean by person? Each nature has particular instances of its nature. For example, you are one instance of human nature, and I am another. However, by person we mean also that a particular individual of a nature is also intelligent and capable of personal interaction. Continue reading “Why Do We Believe in the Trinity?”

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Like Flowers Unfolding Before Him

Henry Van Dyke’s beautiful hymn, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” begins:

Joyful, joyful, we adore You,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before You,
Op’ning to the sun above.

This hymn describes the joy that a person can experience who lifts their hearts up to praise God moment by moment and day by day.

The ancient call of the Psalms rings out calling all nations to join in this joyful praise.

Praise the Lord, all you nations;
extol him, all you peoples.
For great is his love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord.

The Apostle Paul used this Psalm to describe the universal mission of the church to call all peoples to praise their Creator. In doing so, he immediately connected it with joy, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him . . .” (Romans 15:13). Continue reading “Like Flowers Unfolding Before Him”

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Jesus Pursuing Zacchaeus

When I was young, I read and heard C.S. Lewis’ wonderful classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (hereafter LW&W). As a young boy, I was moved by the story of Peter.

Peter’s story is the classic story of a young and inexperienced on a quest. This person has to grow up in order to take leadership in meeting a great challenge. It’s a story of growth, and it’s a story that we all love, whether its form is Annie, Star Wars, or James and the Giant Peach.

A few years ago, I read LW&W out loud to my children, and I made an astonishing discovery. This book is not really about Peter at all. It’s all about Aslan. The title is not Peter, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.. It is The Lion, W&W.

Throughout LW&W, the focus is on what Aslan is going to do or is doing. Aslan wins the victory. Yes, some of the Narnians and Peter fight, but their role is relatively minor. It’s Aslan who defeats the witch and wins the fight.

I think that some of the Bible stories are like that. In the case of Zachaeus, we, as wee little children, were fascinated by the wee little man Zacchaeus who climbed a tree, which was something we also loved to do.

However, the “Zacchaeus” story is not really about Zacchaeus. It is about Jesus. Zacchaeus is there, but it is Jesus who is pursuing Zacchaeus and making things happen.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector for the Roman Empire, and he was no doubt a hated man. Sometimes we try to think about who Zacchaeus represents in our modern world. I think he represents me . . . and you . . . and every other human being on earth.

The God who created the universe comes down in human form to connect with us. He goes right up to us in the midst of a crowd and says, “Wes” or “David” or “Zacchaeus, I’m coming to your house today. I want to have a relationship with you.”

The conclusion of the story tells us this: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

It is God pursuing man.

Jewish Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explains that this is what the Bible is all about. He writes, “Most theories of religion start out with defining the religious situation as man’s search for God . . . [but, a]ll of human history as described in the Bible may be summarized in one phrase: God is in search of man (emphasis his, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, p. 136).

The Christian faith concurs with this perspective and adds that God’s search is so intense that He became a human being. In Jesus, as the Zacchaeus story reveals, God is pursuing man. The God who made heaven and earth and governs it all in perfect wisdom is pursuing you.

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