Crazy Happy Sample

WHERE DO YOU FIND “REAL” HAPPINESS?

Everyone wants to be happy. And that’s a great thing. Why? Because imagine the alternative! Unhappiness doesn’t sound good at all. But, somehow most of us are confused about how to get “real” happiness.

As followers of Jesus, we face this same reality. Although Psalm 144:15 says, “Happy are people whose God is the Lord!” many believers still find themselves chasing happiness. Why is this? 

Simply stated, it’s because they haven’t found their happiness in God. Yes, they believe in the Lord. But they haven’t found him as their treasure.

This is a common problem. It is why the Lord spoke to the children of Israel through the prophet Jeremiah. Instead of finding the Lord to be the ultimate fountain of living waters, we instead would rather make for ourselves water canisters that cannot hold any water. That just means we seek our ultimate satisfaction in places or people that make promises to us…and don’t deliver.

The picture in Jeremiah is stark and provocative: God is the source of all refreshment and nourishment, yet we tend to forsake God and chase after those things that will never even come close to satisfying our deepest longings.

So what do we do with our deepest longings? Because the treadmill of seeking happiness hasn’t been working, right? Neither has constantly trying for new circumstances and successes, or trying to upgrade everything while discarding what didn’t fulfill. On and on, ad nauseum. I know I’ve done that. And I bet you have as well.

I have news for you: God does absolutely want you to be happy. But, God’s plan of happiness is not found down the paths that our contemporary culture takes. And thus, few find it.

Jesus actually explains to us God’s plan for happiness. The happy person is called the "blessed person."  And we learn about that person in the Beatitudes of Jesus’ famed “Sermon on the Mount.” This happiness is also described by the Apostle Paul as the “Fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5. 

I like to call this being Crazy Happy. Why? Because God’s plan for happiness is found in unexpected and surprising places.

As we journey together over the next five days, we will get to explore the Crazy Happy life that Jesus invites us into.

Today, let’s pray about where we have chosen to forsake God and instead tried to replace God with something that could never satisfy us. As we remember these experiences, let us simply turn to Jesus and confess our mistakes. And let’s ask him to make us Crazy Happy in Him.