Happiness. Thursday, May 8. 2014.

I like being happy.

I’m sure most would agree.

There are things in life that make me happy.

Usually simple things.

Spending time with good friends,

getting frozen yogurt,

going for a run,

playing at the park.

Those things bring a smile to my face.

Sometimes even to my heart.

But it only last for as long as the frozen yogurt does.

Or as long as the run does.

Or as for as long as my friend can stay.

Then it’s gone.

Even though frozen yogurt is great it’s not enough.

Even though you might have enough to buy the world and all its contents, it’s not enough.

How could we possibly have access to all we could ever need

and ever even imagine

and have it not be enough?

If we are given all we need, how can it not suffice?

Must there then be something else?

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in the world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

C.S. Lewis

If we have everything we could possibly need at our fingertips

and it’s not enough,

then there must be more.

We’re looking for happiness in all the wrong places,

yet we wonder why we haven’t found it.

Last night at confirmation class I was trying to explain this analogy to a group of boys.

I told them that it is like a little kid

constantly try to fit the circle puzzle piece into the square puzzle slot.

They had no idea what I was talking about and asked me to explain it again in English.

Food!

“Josh, if you ordered a big steak with potatoes and I bring you chicken, are you going to be happy with that?”

“Well, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want steak.”

“Right, you have a craving for steak and I brought you chicken. Chicken won’t satisfy your steak craving.”

So too with happiness.

We crave happiness.

We will fill this craving with worldly things that make us happy,

we will never truly be able to satisfy our craving.

We will try and try and try

but will not succeed.

We have everything we could need

yet there is still a craving within us that is not satisfied.

Is there then a chance that there is within us a craving for happiness,

one that cannot be filled by things of the world?

What is this other world that C.S. Lewis was talking about?

Could it hold the key to happiness?

True happiness?

It seems to me that Christ alone can satisfy this craving for happiness that we all want to desperately to be filled.

If nothing in the world has satisfied thus far,

Christ is a logical explanation.

I like logic too.