When Christ says anyone who wants to find his life must lose it, He is challenging the central, sinful tenant of every human heart from first century Palestine to modern day America. It is the principle of self-determination and self fulfillment. Our goal, far too often is to make ourselves happy. If we are moral people, our goal is to be happy while causing the minimum amount of damage to others. If we are flippin’ saints, our goal is to contribute the maximum amount to other people’s happiness.
Rarely do we ask whether or not happiness is what we were made for. It’s as though the planet earth were suddenly feeling frisky and adventurous and said, “See you later, sun, I’m off to explore.” Then took off gallivanting through the galaxy, and suddenly wondered why it couldn’t hold all its stuff together properly. According to the laws of the universe, it is impossible for any object in space to orbit around itself, and without the gravitational pull of something far larger to keep it on course, all you get is an asteroid, careening around wildly and crashing to its doom on the first surface strong enough to attract it.
We want to be self-determined, but we can’t be. We don’t have to like it, but we are nowhere near big enough to hold ourselves in orbit. We have to revolve around something outside of ourselves, and that Something has to be far, far larger than we are. All of us wake up one day and realize that the choices we’ve made aren’t making us happy, and aren’t fulfilling us. I know that I wake up that way at least twice a year. One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite shows (Wicked, for any of you who don’t know me well enough to guess) sums it up great: “Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true…isn’t it?” Nope. Not to be a downer, but every dream that comes true, with all the joy and wonder that it brings, also brings you to the inevitable question: “What now?” If you were counting on that dream to be the end of your journey, you are out of luck, my friend.
Happiness or fulfillment or whatever you want to call it is a tricky thing. It is the ultimate truth represented in every fairy tale that contains the legend of a treasure that can only be found when you aren’t looking for it. Trying to fulfill yourself will never lead to anything but frustration. Ditto with searching for happiness. The only way to find either one is to get busy living for something else. The grain of wheat will never fulfill its purpose by trying to be the best darn grain of wheat it can be. It was made to turn itself into something else, to be used up and spent in the fulfillment of its calling, and so were we. Happiness is a frequent and pleasant by-product of surrender, and it is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, but anything that is found within us is too fleeting and flimsy a thing to be that for which we live.
Next time we ask ourselves whether or not something we are doing is making us happy, we first need to ask ourselves whether our own happiness was the point of that action. If it turns out that we only made that choice to fulfill ourselves, we have to seriously question our expectations. Why would we ever think that something so great and amazing as happiness or fulfillment could flow out of something as small and narrow as ourselves?
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