Is Our Happiness Preordained?

I read this article about happiness a few days ago. I’m afraid it might be true.

I’m largely an unhappy person. I don’t mean that I’m sad all the time. I spend most of my time in neutral territory, and that seems to be what I prefer. I was walking about a month ago in the hallway of the building where I work. I had just spent the morning successfully writing some code. I didn’t feel happy, excited, joyous, or ecstatic. I was merely satisfied and content. I realized that at that moment, I was about as pleased as I ever get.

It was an odd thought to have. I’ve certainly been more “happy” on many occasions. But, as a pessimist (I might as well own up to it), I find it difficult to enjoy being unusually happy. I’m always a little too keenly aware that the bubble will soon burst. The muted day to day victories are safer.

Yesterday, the sermon I heard was on Jesus’ “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem. The crowd, which would later desert him, welcomed Jesus as a king, and as a fulfillment of their desires and expectations. But that’s one thing that Jesus by and large did not do. He of course had compassion on people, healing them and raising their dead. But no one asked Jesus to fulfill his central mission: to die on our behalf to be raised three days later. Peter even tried to stand in the way.

The pastor asked, “We all put down our cloaks and palm branches before Jesus, don’t we?” We pray, pay tithes, and so on, under the assumption that Jesus wants more or less the same things as us, and to usher in those things.

“Are you disappointed with Jesus?” It’s easy to admit that we’re disappointed with other people, but our trained response as Christians is to say, of course not. Jesus died for our sins. How could we be disappointed? But in the (sometimes not so) quiet recesses of our minds, especially if we take sovereignty seriously, we know that somehow Jesus is behind all our disappointments. We are disappointed with Jesus. In spite of what I was always told growing up (why?), sometimes God doesn’t answer prayers. Sometimes he leaves us to twist in the wind.

He lets sick people die, he lets us get fired, he lets spouses cheat. Maybe he even constructs our psyches, by nature and by superintended circumstance, to be melancholy and suspicious of happiness. It reminds me of a hymn by William Cowper, who was a friend of John Newton and probably also clinically depressed.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.