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Happiness and Holiness

Long before I was born, my father had been a smoker. Then, when my older siblings were still little, he quit. Because he knew first-hand the downside of smoking, he was very negative about it. So I grew up in a home where my younger brother and I were not even allowed to pretend we were smoking.

This prohibition led to our becoming fascinated with it. I was particularly charmed by the idea of smoking a pipe. Our doctor smoked a pipe and I thought he looked very distinguished when he did so. A few of my parents friends also smoked pipes so I got to see the elaborate process of filling the bowl, tamping it down, lighting it and then, in the case of one particular fellow, relighting it over and over. He obviously hadn’t mastered the tamping process.

At any rate, I took a real, though suppressed interest in it. On a visit to one of my grandmothers, I went for a walk in her neighbourhood while she and my mother chatted. I entered a little corner store and before long, spied a cardboard rack of cheap pipes. I counted the few coins I had and discovered I could buy one. In those unenlightened days, people didn’t ask a 10-year-old boy what he wanted with a pipe, they just sold it to him.

As soon as I had made my purchase, I began to think about how this violated my parents standards. I knew they would be most displeased and that I would have to keep it hidden. I imaged myself using it in the woods, far from the house. I would look very distinguished. I would be the most distinguished 10-year-old boy around. But then in my daydreams, someone would come along and catch me with it and, before long, I would be the sorriest 10-year-old boy around.

That evening, we arrived home rather late and it was bed-time before I had a chance to do anything with my new pipe. I took it to bed with me and put it under the pillow where I could run my fingers over its smooth stem and rough-textured bowl. If only I could use it! But as I fantasized about it, my conscience became increasingly tender. Even as I touched it admiringly, I knew my parents would hold it in contempt.

Back and forth my thoughts raged. Sleep fled away. I lay there thinking, imagining, by now, not about smoking it, but about what would happen when I got caught. And I knew that, inevitably, I would be caught. I had been singularly unsuccessful at hiding things from my parents until then. Why should it be any different now? Rather than being a source of enjoyment, it was causing me distress and I hadn’t even possessed it for 24 hours.

Finally, I left my bed and went to the head of the stairs, called for my mother, and scooted back to bed. She came up and as soon as I heard her footsteps on the stairs, I began to weep. Judgment was about to fall. I was utterly miserable. When she entered my room and asked what was wrong, I simply pulled back the pillow so she could see the thing which had become an instrument of torture to me.

She picked it up and asked, “Is this the problem?” I nodded with the words stuck in my throat. With a quick flick of her wrists she snapped it in half, then said, “There, it’s not a problem any more, is it?” I shook my head, waiting for more. But she simply turned and walked away as she said, “I’ll throw this out for you.” And that was that. I rolled over, curled up in a little ball, and fell asleep, almost immediately.

I had thought that violating my parents standards would make me happy, but it made me supremely miserable. When I came clean about it, my mother dealt with it simply and effectively, without embarrassment, humiliation or pain. Now, many years later, when I find myself wondering why I sometimes feel so unhappy, I check to see if I am violating my heavenly Father’s standards. Doing that, I’ve discovered, also makes one miserable.

I would venture to say, that true happiness eludes those who insist on finding it through the violation of God’s standards. Disrespect of God’s holiness is guaranteed to bring wretchedness. On the other hand, finding and aligning ourselves with God’s standards brings deep lasting happiness. Psalm 112:1 gives us these words, “Praise the LORD. Blessed (happy) is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.”

Just as relief from my juvenile misery came through confession, so my happiness now derives from being right with God. Because Jesus died for our sin, the sting of our guiltiness has been removed. When we confess our sin, God is faithful and He is just. He forgives that sin. (See 1 John 1:9) When we receive His pardon, happiness floods into our lives. We have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to come between us. Is there anything that could make us happier?

Happy people have a sense of God’s holiness and live accordingly.

Ron Hughes
© November 2007