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To be happy is to be the object of God’s love in Christ and to love God and others with the love of Christ.
I was surprised to see a translation of Proverbs 17:22 that read: “A happy heart is good medicine.” Earlier generations would know this verse as “A joyful heart” set in juxtaposition to “a broken spirit” that “dries up the bones.” Singing this verse in our youth had a conditioning effect: pursue the Lord for joy in life. This, of course, was in line with a myriad of biblical exhortations such as Psalm 16:11: "You [Lord] will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of Your presence and the pleasures of living with You forever.” In that schema, the Lord abides as the source of joy and delight and blessedness. Hence, the prophet Jeremiah: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord” (17:7). But the recent alteration in terminology reflects a change in value and human pursuits. Happiness, it seems, is prized more than joy or a blessed estate. The source of happiness, too, has defrayed from the Lord to any number of factors that give (as Google now defines happiness) feelings of fulfillment, purpose, and well-being.
Something has changed. Happiness is divorced from virtue. And virtues, such as they are determined by contemporary values, are divorced from God — the source of all true virtue and, therefore, happiness (where happiness is understood as divine joy and blessedness). The divorce of happiness from divine virtue and God has had a conditioning effect on people, too. Happiness has suffered a qualitative downgrade.
Happiness used to be thicker and richer, which is why words like “joy” and “delight” and “blessedness” were better designators when describing it. Happiness bespoke of a divine source and virtuous enrichment of a person’s soul. It wasn’t so much a feeling as it was a disposition in life due to some greater, overriding reality — like Christ’s redeeming love. Love, not for the self, but being loved and altered by that love constituted abiding joy or a disposition of happiness, such that persevered through troubles and trials. Love, argues St. Paul, is the greatest of virtues (1 Corinthians 13), and it’s always striving toward and for others. This is what makes it the greatest virtue. And no wonder, for God is love (1 John 4:8). To be happy, then, is to be the object of God’s love in Christ and to love God and others with the love of Christ, come what may.
Once we collapse the pursuit of happiness around the individual and the circumstances of a person’s life, we’ll find that contemporary happiness is largely a circumstantial byproduct.
However, people today want a sense of “well-being” disconnected from virtue. Well-being, popularly understood, is virtueless happiness. And so, in order to attain moments of “well-being,” the contemporary pursuit is that of the sentiment of happiness. Again, it’s not the kind of happiness resultant from the pursuit of virtue, which again would lead one directly to God or, at least in the case of the ancient Greeks, the gods or philosophical concept of “God” as the supreme good. No. In order to understand today’s idea of happiness we have to think in terms of consumption of things that engender the momentary sentiment of happiness. Happiness can be marketed. Happiness is marketed as a consumed commodity, be that commodity a product, ideology, or status. Just look at the personalities of those who use Gain Scent-Beads or drive a Lexus or vacation at Sandals or practice yoga or Stoic mindfulness— they project “happiness.” Once we collapse the pursuit of happiness around the individual and the circumstances of a person’s life, we’ll find that contemporary happiness is largely a circumstantial byproduct, depending on whether the circumstances elicit favorable sentiments or at least project such favorability. Bleakly, happiness has been reduced to an image. “You look happy?” Being happy, on the other hand, transcends the moment and has an enduring quality about it, even when circumstances are awful. Justification by grace posits a deep-seated happiness on account of God’s great love set to action in Christ Jesus (Rom. 5:8). And at the same time, regeneration allows for the virtues of the Spirit, virtues like love and joy, to form as a disposition within the baptized. This is why St. Paul, for one, believed that joy and thankfulness were basic to life as a Christian (Phil. 4:4-8).
Notwithstanding, an attractive feature of the modern pursuit of happiness is that when one option fails to deliver, then you simply discard it and try another that fits your style, that is, your image of happiness you’d like to project. And, so, the consumption never ends because the pursuit of well-being through vapid sentiments of happiness in a crowded marketplace of competitors (ever touting new and improved methods and experiences) never actually satisfies the soul. Never. Modern happiness remains an ever-elusive deceit.
St. Augustine wisely said that only finding our repose in God will yield true and lasting joy, delight, and blessedness. He stated it like this: “You, O Lord, have created us for Yourself. And our hearts are restless, until they find their repose in You.” [1] According to Augustine, happiness is nothing other than the joy, delight, and blessedness one has in God and with God. Think in terms of Colossians 3:3: “Your life is hidden with Christ in God,” and you’ll better understand what the Lord means by “happiness.” Yes, there’s a sentiment involved, but the source of that sentiment is not a subjective feeling but rather the objective One himself — the Creator who made us for himself. What is more, the source of sentiment flows from the “fruit of the Spirit” delineated in Galatians 5:22-23: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Consequently, happiness does not only begin with God but also consists of him and terminates in him. “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord,” exclaims the psalmist (144:15). In Galatians, St. Paul establishes Augustine’s observation that it isn’t circumstances, but rather God himself both with us and in us that serves as the wellspring of happiness, the kind of happiness that also assuages the niggling of having a purpose in life and satisfaction with life and even ourselves. “The Spirit is the indwelling wellspring of joy in God that we experience as we live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20). Paul hereby makes explicit the connection between the Spirit-engendered virtue of joy and living in the gift of faith.
A Christian can have true happiness in Christ and only Christ yields true happiness. In other words, happiness is reciprocal love in Christ. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). That’s happiness rehabilitated, happiness as gift, and justification is the first point of contact for each of us.
It turns out that “A happy heart is good medicine” when God’s love determines our happiness.
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