Many of the most miserable people I know are emotionally stuck because they won’t accept advice, instruction or discipline. They may be “in therapy.” They may have wise friends. They may read books designed to help them. They may even know what God’s expectations are. But they live in a state of perpetual unhappiness.
Kathy fancies herself a musician. She likes to sing karaoke. She seeks opportunities to perform in the community. She passes herself off as a piano teacher, though she is entirely self-taught and has no credentials. But Kathy is not a happy person. She is often wounded by unkind remarks directed at her musical efforts. She is seldom invited for repeat performances. She has a high turn-over rate among her piano students. She is always looking for new friends to impress. Kathy’s identity is tied up with her musical fantasies and she resents suggestions and hints that perhaps her real strengths lie in another area. When people, like Kathy, see themselves a certain way, the last thing they want is others telling them that they should change. They resist, often sacrificing friendship and love if they feel threatened.
Doug is about twenty years old, single, and often unhappy. He has had some deep difficulties in his family relationships in the past and is glad to be on his own now. But Doug has destructive patterns of behaviour. He approaches relationships like the director of a dramatic production. He casts the people in his life in specific roles. Older people are “therapists” and Doug likes to spend hours with them rehearsing the unsavoury details of his life. Younger men are competitors with who he compares himself negatively in every way but one. According to him, he is extraordinarily intellectually gifted. Younger women are invariably objects of conquest. Unfortunately, he despises the ones he conquers and resents the ones who resist (which, by the way is the vast, vast majority). Doug lives his life according to a series of scripts which determine his behaviour. While he doesn’t like this, it is comfortable to him and he resists any advice or instruction which would attempt to lead him into the realm of authentic relationships which he finds unfamiliar and disquieting.
Truth be told, there are areas in the life of every person which share the weakness exemplified by Kathy and Doug. Let me take you to the Bible for a couple of quotes which shed light on how we can be blessed by God and consequently know really happiness. In Job 5:17 we read: “Blessed [or happy] is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.” And in Psalm 94:12 we find these words: “Blessed [or happy] is the man you discipline, O LORD, the man you teach from your law;
These quotations make it clear that one of the things that contributes to our happiness is our acceptance of God wisdom. That may come in the form of instruction, correction, or discipline. We may receive it through reading the Bible, interacting with godly wise people, occasionally, even through a subjective impression, though those are usually corroborated by something more objective.
God intended us to be righteous - to be has He originally designed humanity to be. That means sinless and in a meaningful, intimate relationship with Himself. This, of course, is the last thing any of us are. Since Adam’s and Eve’s sad experience with disobedience, all human tendency has been toward sin and away from God.
But God made a way for his original purpose to proceed in spite of the entrance of sin into the picture. He made it possible for our sin to be removed by taking it on Himself through the death of Jesus on the cross. That sacrificial act makes it possible for people like Kathy and Doug (and you and me) to be free from the traps in which we often find ourselves.
Opening ourselves to receive the correction and discipline of God as He would guide us in His ways and into an ever-deeper relationship with Himself will open new vistas of hope and happiness as we face the days ahead, especially the endless day of eternity.
Happy people are able to receive correction, discipline, and instruction of God.
Ron Hughes
© September 2007