A Little Bit of Happiness

I was in a class last week about Holiness (John Wesley, American Holiness Movement, Church of Nazarene) taught Dr. Diane Leclerc, and we were reminded (for me, it might be even taught) that a “holiness” people seeking holiness (not in a self-righteous, judgmental, legalistic way FWIW) find happiness through the desire for and pursuit of holiness. It was an awesome class, and I took a way a lot from it. As is my norm, I’m still processing it.

Then, this morning, I read this in the intro to Gary Thomas’ intro to his post Getting at the Core Message Behind Sacred Marriage’s, “What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?” (I’m a free subscriber, so I only get the intro).

I don’t mean that happiness and holiness are competitors. On the contrary, I agree with John Wesley that only those who pursue holiness will find true happiness.

Gary Thomas, Getting at the Core Message Behind Sacred Marriage’s, “What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?”

Also, this morning (and what ended up driving this), I found this picture of a Bansky installation:

There is some deep truth in Bansky’s art piece, and it is one of the issues that I continue to deal with (I even touched on it during my sermon this past Sunday). However, this also smacks of the “self-improvement” and “self-satisfaction” pursuit that seems to be anything but fulfilling and resulting in fulfilled people.

In my own self-improvement inner work, I have come to realize that happiness and fulfillment are not necessarily the same.

I have seen it proposed in non-religious contexts and by non-religious academics, that the current relentless pursuit of happiness is actually driving unhappiness. That doesn’t make sense at first.

Think about it, though. As one pursues happiness, there is this weird inverse desire for greater happiness. Is happiness pursued ever really found?