If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
Last week, in the December 8 UM ~ Fading Peace, we looked at these promises, when they come and what they bring, in regards to serenity and peace. Today though, let's look at the promise that comes first after finding a new freedom. We will find a new happiness! One of the promises is happiness.
So what's so new about this happiness we can have? Well, for starters, it's not so much happiness as it is joy. It's not something that we get from self-indulgence, distraction or escape from life, or because we fed or bribed the beast that controls our emotions. This happiness or joy is a delight in life that goes deeper than pleasure or pain, according to the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.
What is new about it is that it comes as a gift from God as one of the fruits of the Spirit. It's not some illusive moment or emotion that we have to refuse to look at closely for fear it will disappear, we don't have to be afraid it will fade or be taken away as soon as we begin to enjoy it. This is not the happiness of foolishness and folly or the pleasure at getting our way, but this is the happiness, the joy the delight in life that comes because we have found that new freedom and a life worth living. This is the joy that comes from being in relationship with God and knowing that He loves and cares for us. Better to be sick and loved, or poor and with the one who has your heart than to be rich and healthy and lonely forever, right? Whenever I hear something like that I think yeah, but it's also better to be rich and healthy and loved and with the one who has your heart. And it is. But the point is that what matters, what makes life a delight, regardless of how good or bad, easy or hard, the rest of it is, is love and relationship.
And not just any love and relationship will do for lasting and unshakable delight in life. The love of a spouse or child or parent or friend(s) or a combination of all of these is great, and it does make life better. But the love that truly matters, the love that brings delight even in tough times, the love that gives us the life worth living and makes it possible for us to love someone else as we should instead of living like selfish stars of the show where everyone else in our life is nothing more than supporting cast to our selfie, is the love of and relationship with God. This is the love that sets us free from our captivity. And this is the love that died to give us peace both within and with our Creator. And this is the love that is so faithful and true that we have hope that won't be deferred, fade or make us sorry we hoped. And this is the love that brings delight in life that neither pain nor pleasure can take away or change, a new happiness to go with our new life of freedom.
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