Inner Happiness

Inner happiness is the most sought-after quality of human life. But many people find true happiness impossible to attain.

Everybody wants to be happy, and we've all had tantalizing glimpses of what complete happiness might be like. We can be truly happy, it seems, only as long as our circumstances are just right. Since most of the time our fortunes are mixed, happiness is forever retreating before the chill winds of anxiety. We're convinced that lasting happiness is an impossibility.

Happiness is a complex thing.

Suppose I asked you to rate your happiness on a scale of one to ten. You'd probably reply by asking what I meant happy right now, or happy in general? People are almost always happy about some things and anxious about others. It's even possible to feel happy and anxious over the same thing at the same time-like the first day of new job.

Here's how you can revolutionize your happiness by applying the following principles. You must understand two crucially important facts.

First, happiness is available only to those who really want it. This may be surprising to many. But it is true that many people do not want to be happy as they are often suffering in their self-activated anxiety not willing to be freed from it. Determine that you want to be happy whatever the situation you are in and you will be on the road to true happiness.

Second, the idea that feeling must respond to circumstance is a myth. That's a hard statement to accept, I know. We feel happy if we are loved and anxious if we are not, so doesn't that prove the power of circumstance over feeling? No, it doesn't, for the simple reason that what we see as circumstance isn't circumstance at all. We exclude the wider picture.

That's why I can not propose any solution to anxiety without reference to God. Read these words of the apostle Paul:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6,7-The Bible).

Let me summarize the matter briefly like this. Happiness is not attained by removing the causes of anxiety (they often can't be removed). Nor is it attained by pretending that the causes don't exist (they usually do exist). Happiness comes by allowing the presence of God to invade your perception and put the causes in their proper place. The Bible has a simple word for this process: peace. What the Bible says about finding peace can be summed up neatly in this formula:

Don't make the mistake of thinking that praise has to do only with Church attendance and worship. The attitude of praise should carry over into every area of your life, and especially into your treatment of other people. Anxious people are notorious for their dull conversation. They talk about nothing but their worries. They perpetually ask of other peoples an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. But this has the effect of reinforcing their own anxiety because they are forever reminding themselves of its causes.

"If you want happiness, provide it to others." Direct your attention outward. Look for ways of helping or caring for others because in serving others you will find real happiness.

Poise is essential if you want to turn happiness into a practical possibility.

Pessimism is often hailed as gritty and realistic, but that's just not true. Pessimism is popular because unpleasant experiences make a greater impact on us than pleasant ones. The result is that we become obsessed with negativity in the mistaken belief that pessimism is the only rational response to our situation.

To find peace we must stop this mental deterioration in its early stages.

However bad the situation is, we will not be helped one iota by wallowing in anxiety. Our only hope lies in positive action undertaken in a positive frame of mind. Poise, then, begins by deliberately replacing anxious thoughts with happy ones.

Paul writes: "whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things." (Philippians 4:8).

We call this process "thought control". Thought control is easier if you take time to relax.

Paul's teaching on happiness and anxiety is specifically linked to prayer: " be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" (Phil.4:6). Prayer results in two transformations.

First, there is a transformation of mind. In speaking to God you address yourself to the Person in whom all causes of anxiety have their resolution. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that we are given strength to rejoice in our difficulties if only we will receive it.

Second, there is a transformation of spirit. Anybody can pray, but nobody can pray and expect to be answered unless he comes to God in an attitude of weakness and repentance. You can't pull rank with God! Prayer does not bring God into line with your plans; it brings you into line with His plans. And that's good news because discovering your place in God's plan-in other words, discovering your salvation-is the source of the deepest possible peace and happiness.

That experience has nothing to do with social status or even with your religious life.

Have you had that transformation? If you want to make true happiness a possibility, you'll need it.

So, according to the Bible, the Word of God, peace is found in a life that combines praise and poise and prayer. The peace of God doesn't always remove the causes of anxiety, nor does it ask us to pretend that those causes don't exist. But it does equip us with the spiritual and emotional resources we need to live happily in spite of the difficulties we face. Amen. Be encouraged.