Tag: Bible

Chasing Happiness

What is happiness? Can you define it? Or can you merely describe it?

The Declaration of Independence states that God endowed man with the right to pursue happiness, and today, many people are doing just that. The tragedy is that most people cannot tell you what happiness really is. They can merely describe a situation in which they believe they would find themselves to be happy.

The blessing is that God not only has given us the gift of happiness, but has also explained through His word how to unwrap that gift.

In Psalm 1, the Bible says “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the unGodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”

That word “blessed” can also be translated “happy.” To understand what it means to be blessed or happy, we have to understand what those literal words mean. “Blessed” was translated from a Hebrew word that means “to be confident and secure.”

And when you think about the ways people describe the happiness they pursue, doesn’t that definition hold up?

How many times have you heard someone say, “I just want to be with my family.”

“I just want my kids to be safe and healthy.”

“All I need is a roof over my head and food in the fridge.”

People save for retirement so they can achieve a status where they don’t have to grind at a 40-60 hour per week job in order to make ends meet. People dream of winning the lottery, not so they can buy multiple luxuries, but for the idea that they will no longer have to worry about money and deal with financial insecurity.

The sad part is, both of those avenues to happiness often fail. How many lottery winners actually go on to “happily ever after?” Very few. Most will tell you winning the lottery actually ruined their lives.

Retirement accounts can be wiped out by market crashes, company collapses, or divorce decrees. Furthermore, even if you make it to retirement with a healthy balance, often the fixed income from that account fails to keep up with inflation.

So, is happiness unattainable?

Quite the opposite.

Psalm 1 actually gives us the formula to attain true happiness, true confidence and security.

Psalm 1:1, which I quoted above, tells us exactly how to undermine happiness. Happiness is undermined when we walk in the counsel of the unGodly, stand in the way of sinners and sit in the seat of the scornful.

Walking in the counsel of the unGodly means to follow and live by the advice of unGodly people. It is important to remember that Godliness has less to do with personal morality, and more to do with aligning oneself with God’s teachings.

One can be faithful to their spouse, have integrity in business, but have a heart in rebellion against God, thus rendering themselves unGodly.

When taking the advice of others, it is important to make sure that advice lines up with scripture. Following a course of action that contradicts scripture, even when you can logically and emotionally justify it, leads to disaster. Trust me on this one.

Following a course of action that is contrary to scripture, even when others validate and understand it, will lead to emotional and Spiritual devastation.

Standing in the way of sinners means to exalt and promote yourself the way sinners do. To stand, or to have standing, means to have prestige and honor. It means to have a right to something, and to belong.

We all want these things. The problem to happiness is when we seek these things the way the world seeks them. When we self-promote out of pride, we are hindering our own happiness.

Scripture teaches that the standing we have that brings true happiness is the standing we have in the Lord through the Gospel.

And sitting in the seat of the scornful means to rest in anger and bitterness. The poster children for this category are the political commentators we see on cable news. Do any of these people even appear to have tasted happiness?

When you sit back, look for flaws, and complain, you will never be happy.

So, now that we have covered how not to be happy, how do we achieve happiness? Psalm 1 answers that question in the next two verses.

Psalm 1:2-3 says, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

Notice the man’s source of happiness. It’s in the law of the LORD (which is basically scripture, the Bible.) This man finds confidence and security in the Lord, and thinks about him all day and night.

If this sounds boring to you, that’s a pretty good indication that you’ve fallen into the categories listed in verse 1.

Getting your mind into the scripture goes beyond just rehashing the basic fundamentals of the faith and the do’s and don’ts of life. It also means contemplating God’s character, how He interacts with man, and by doing so, how He interacts with you.

The alternative is to spend the day focused on your anxieties and challenges in life. Either that, or trying to distract yourself from them through movies, entertainment, social media, retail therapy, excessive eating, or substance abuse. If we’re honest with ourselves, this has never worked, and has always robbed us of happiness.

On the other hand, you can get your mind into the scriptures, learn of God, and then face your challenges with the confidence and security of knowing that the eternal creator of all things is controlling what you cannot. And, you’ll have the peace of knowing that He has good will toward you. He loves you.

Do you have family problems? You can stay focused on those problems all day, or you can consider how God brought Abraham, Jacob, David and others through their family problems. Maybe you can consider the testimony of a Christian friend who went through their own family problems, and how God brought them through that.

And as God gives you hope through that meditation, you don’t go into a state of denial over your family problems, but you can learn to go through them with peace. And, by thinking on how scripture teaches you to work through those problems, you will be able to see those problems through to a happy conclusion.

Psalm 1 goes on to describe what it looks like when we do this. Verse 3 says the blessed (happy) man is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

The picture painted here is of a tree planted by the river with a healthy root system that is continually supplied with life-giving water from the river. That tree is solid, produces fruit, and doesn’t wither.

Likewise, when we stay plugged into our source of life and happiness, we too experience Spiritual health and well-being, to the point that we bear fruit and make an impact to this world. And when that happens, we find confidence and security.

Our source of life and happiness is the Lord. As that tree’s root system gravitates toward the rivers of water, our minds should gravitate toward the Lord, toward our source of life and happiness.

This is where we will find stability and prosperity. This is where we will find happiness.

Broken People: How the Flaws of the Bible Patriarchs Turned Jordan Peterson toward the Bible

Why are some people successful, while others fail? Beyond work ethic, why do some seem to have a natural ability to connect with others, negotiate, identify the right path forward, and succeed? Meanwhile, others struggle just to get through the day?

What is truth? How can we learn through scientific process the answers to these questions?

Such has been the life’s mission of Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who teaches courses at several universities including the University of Toronto, who’s also written several books and is currently hosting a podcast series for the Daily Wire.

Peterson rose to fame while doing a BBC interview about one of his books, in which the interviewer repeatedly asked pointed questions in an attempt to be able to discredit him as a misogynist or a racist. His fame continued to grow as videos of his college lectures, his public lecture series, and a podcast series on the Bible began to go viral online.

While the controversial BBC interview launched him to fame, the logic, academic approach to psychology and human nature, and the conclusions he articulates have kept him in the spotlight, so much so that he took a sabbatical and no one noticed due to the ubiquity of this content online.

Peterson looked to the Bible for psychology. He looked to the Bible to learn behavioral patterns, learn lessons, and map out a framework for how to tackle life’s challenges, taking object lessons from the Old Testament patriarchs. What he found was truth. Moreover, Peterson found that all truth is preconditioned on the Bible.

He went so far as to say, “Without the Bible, there can be no truth.”

So, how does an atheistic psychologist who preached secularism come to a faith in the truth of the Bible, and go on to a faith in the existence of God (per his statements in his videos)?

In a video lecture before a university audience, the question was posed, “Do you believe that the Bible is true?” To which Peterson responded, “If not the Bible, then what is true?”

Peterson went on to make the case that, in reading the Bible, you read about the lives of the patriarchs, and the scriptures include not only their stories of victory, but also their failures.

Peterson noted how many of these failures were major, and some of the patriarchs were rotten people, and did rotten things. He pointed out that for religious texts, this is unusual.

In this video, which I can no longer find on YouTube, Peterson said that most religious texts portray the good side of the founders of the religion, and hide their flaws and failures. The Bible, on the other hand, showed the patriarchs of the Christian faith for who they were, including their frailties, failures, and brokenness. The result was an honest, transparent representation of the Christian faith, and furthermore, an amazing demonstration of God’s power.

God was able to work through the brokenness of man to accomplish His will. That resonated with Peterson, who began to explore the Bible more, and has now embarked on a podcast series to explore the Bible more deeply.

As a result of God working through the brokenness of man thousands of years ago, you have a secular professor exploring the Bible, going so far as to declare that it is the precondition for all truth, and calling on people to turn to God or face His wrath. While his views and doctrine may not line up with ours, I believe that, for the sake of the Gospel, we can see how a man whose primary audience includes college students and intellectual leaders can benefit the Kingdom of God greatly through his scholarly presentations of scripture.

Students today are generally guided away from the Bible, away from God, and toward their own subjective perceptions of truth, which the intellectual left seeks to shape through media, entertainment and education. Peterson, on the other hand, is leading students to go back to the Bible as the foundation of all truth, if not the very foundation of our society itself.

And his journey down this road began when he discovered how God worked through the brokenness of Abraham, Jacob, David, among others.

God works through broken people, and He is glorified through His work through the lives of broken people. He is glorified in that His name is made known, His power is shown, and people are faced with His undeniable truth.

God works through broken people. So we need not be discouraged when we find ourselves struggling with brokenness, neither do we need to be disillusioned when those whom we admire fail. God works through the brokenness to bring about His glory, and the blessings He has promised.

Yes, Virginia, You Can Go to Therapy

Progressive pastors never miss an opportunity to enrage the fundamentalists, and the fundamentalists never miss the opportunity to be enraged. Such was the case recently on Twitter when a progressive pastor of whom I have never heard posted a tweet encouraging people to attend churches where the pastor goes to therapy, and encourages the congregation to go to therapy. The result? An onslaught of fundamentalists decrying this pastor’s statement, saying in essence, “all you need for mental health is the Bible.”

I’m going to be real about this. If I were to ever find myself in a position where I needed therapy, I would probably remove myself from the pulpit. I would feel that I would not be fit for Spiritual leadership, and that the church deserved better. But that’s an expectation I place on myself.

As for therapy and the Bible, let’s begin by setting the stage by defining what the Bible is and what the Bible teaches.

First, the Bible is the inspired word of God, penned by prophets and apostles who had God’s word given to them either through vision, angelic message or by direct dictation by God Himself. You can see the inspirational process in action when you read Revelation. The Apostle John, banished to the Isle of Patmos, saw the resurrected, glorified Jesus. Jesus then told John what to write. Throughout the book of Revelation, John sees things and tries to describe them. Angels tell him what to write, and at times, the Lord dictates to Him as well. However, the entire thing came from God, and thus is God’s word.

The Bible, being God’s word, is all we need for faith and practice. It’s all we need to learn more about God, to build our faith, and to live our lives in accordance with that faith. However, to say that all we do is drawn from scripture is an error. Not all church traditions come from scripture, neither are all of our personal choices.

Scripture did not teach the church to open the worship service with Doxology, recite a creed, do a responsive reading, sing three hymns, collect an offering and receive a sermon from the professionally paid pastor. There are a lot of beautiful traditions in the church that I believe praise and honor God, but many of these traditions are not explicitly laid out in scripture. Some point to certain passages and say that it can be inferred that these traditions were in place among the apostles, but that is a mighty big assumption to make.

Since we find that, in the church, we can make decisions and do things that scripture did not specifically teach, but still honor God in so doing, it follows we can do the same thing with our personal lives. Scripture says very little about how to pick a career, how to choose a college, or whether to send your kids to public school or private school. Scripture does teach us how to work (do all for the glory of God), but it does not tell us how to go about choosing what kind of work to do. The lesson is that you can still honor God by making these choices.

Does that mean that scripture lacks direction for believers? As Paul would say, “No, in no wise!”

Scripture was not given to teach us how to do church, how to live life, how to make money, etc. Scripture was given to teach us how to have a right relationship with God. And that right relationship comes through two steps, (1) learning, understanding and accepting the Gospel as truth, and (2) repentance and faith.

The central message of the Bible is the Gospel. All scripture either sets up the Gospel, illustrates the Gospel, explains the Gospel, or declares the Gospel. The Gospel is defined in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

Jesus Christ died for our sins, meaning that His death on the cross satisfied the judgment and wrath of God for man’s sin, thus we can walk away scot-free from His judgment, if we believe. Christ took that wrath upon Himself and shielded us from it. The fact that He rose again proves his power and victory over death. By defeating death, He brought in eternal life, so we can have the confident expectation (hope) that we will be received into His Kingdom (Heaven) when we die.

The Gospel teaches that I am broken, that I am a sinner, that my rebellious and selfish choices have inflicted harm upon myself, and those around me. However, through the Gospel, Jesus can heal my broken spirit, wash away my sin, and restore me and those around me from the harm I’ve caused.

Since many mental health issues stem from the issues of sin and brokenness, it is entirely possible, and very common to find healing in the Gospel and the Gospel alone. As a pastor, I counsel individuals through this process. I can, using only the Bible, show the source of the pain an individual is in, show how comfort and healing can be found in the Gospel, and give my congregant hope. I can, from the scriptures, demonstrate God’s divine purpose in suffering, and in so doing provide comfort for the one seeking my help.

And while I have seen people healed through this ministry multiple times, I can also say that there is a time when one needs to seek a qualified therapist who believes the Bible. I say this because I can demonstrate everything I have listed, but I cannot teach someone how to identify and control triggers.

In the Bible, I can show hope, but I cannot manage a chemical imbalance, or the brain patterns of someone whose mind has been altered by repeated mental, emotional and physical trauma.

In the Bible, I can listen and be non-judgmental, but sometimes people want to talk to a stranger for another view, another set of eyes and expertise.

And that is okay. I have on a couple of occasions referred people to qualified counselors who hold a Biblical worldview. And those folks got the help they need.

So, if you’re having issues, let’s talk. If I cannot help you, or you need more intense therapy, let’s get you to a counselor.

So, yes, Virginia, you can go to therapy.