Catching happiness

I think when I'm going through something, (like discontentment,) I need to share it with other people so that I can grasp it better. Many times I think that if I just live here or just work at this job, or if my hair just looked like that, or if I could only date the man of my dreams, that life would fall into place and I would be happy. Well, sometimes, I've been able to live in a place I'm really in love with. Sometimes I've loved my job, and sometimes my hair looks amazing. As for the man of my dreams - well, here's to hoping he exists. I've had some wonderful times in my life already; but these things are fleeting. Nothing is forever, nothing stays the same. Good and bad, it all fluctuates. Once I realized that I should be chasing after God, and not these things on earth for fulfillment and happiness, was when my whole outlook on life turned around.

If you think that by getting what you want you'll be happy - you're wrong. You might be happy for a time, but you will become restless, entitled and want more of something else. 

That's not to say that I don't get distracted with life's wealth or the happiness it pretends to promise. I often get incredibly discouraged. However, it's in those times that I need to seek the Lord more. He will give me a spirit of contentment and happiness wherever I am. 

My prayer is this, dear friends and family: if you are struggling with contentment in your life, please stop trying to fill it with things the world can give you. You will only be left with a dull, aching hunger. Know that God loves you so much - he's waiting for you to call on him so that he can sustain you.

Chuck Swindoll, in his book: Living on the Ragged Edge, writes:

In this ragged-edged reality called earthly existence, life is somewhere between sad and bad. All it takes is a quick look around to discover why we line up to watch fantasies that take us to galaxies far, far away. Who wouldn't want to escape from an existence as boring and painful as ours? For many, it's downright horrid. It's drug abuse. It's sleepless nights. It's headaches. It's heartaches. It's hate, rape, assault, jail sentences. It's sickness and sorrow. It's broken lives. It's distorted minds. Mainly, as Solomon discovered long ago, it's empty. There's nothing down here under the sun that will give you and me a sense of lasting satisfaction. It is planned that way! How else would we realize our need for the living God?

I don't care how good your professional practice is, much of it is boring. I don't care how big your house is or how exciting your future is. I don't care how hard you work or how large your paycheck or how sincere your efforts, when you boil life down to the nubbies... when the lights are turned off at night, you're back to reality--its boring and horribly empty. To quote Solomon the realist, it is like chasing the wind.

You work so that you can make money, so that you can spend it, so that you can work and make more money, so that you can spend it, so that you can get more, which will mean you spend more, and your work harder to make more. So goes this endless cycle called 'striving after wind.'

That explains why people will line up by the millions to view a fantasy on film and sit in silent amazement at someone's imaginary world of imaginary characters who do imaginary things--because life under the sun is so dreadfully, unchangingly boring.

To put it bluntly, life on planet Earth without God is the pits. And if I may repeat my point (Solomon does numerous times), that's the way God designed it. He made it like that. He placed within us that God-shaped vacuum that only He can fill. Until He is there, nothing satisfies (page 85f).