Does God want me happy?

"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased" (Matthew 3:17)

Some people think God does not want them happy so they avoid God's demands at all cost.  Other people are so consumed with happiness that it seems like they can never find it for true lasting happiness is only found in Christ!.  The Psalmist knew this truth when he says, "Bless is the man" or happy is the man who runs after God and not after the world (Psalm 1). 

What I am discovering is the more I give myself to God, the more God gives Himself to me.  The more I divest myself of the things of this world, the greater my joy, peace, and happiness I posses.  What God is teaching me in the school of suffering is I am to love God in all things equally.  I am to love God in poverty and riches, temptation or without temptation, suffering or no suffering.  One of the things God is teaching me is the spiritual discipline of detachment.

Detachment is where we let go of the things of the world and stop trying to be in control.  Detachment is where we learn that the more we give up, the more free we become.  The more we suffer, the more we can bear under pressure.  When our only concern is God, we have little concern for the things of the world.  There is a new way of living in God's simplicity, purity, and higher calling where we don't just survive or exist but enter into the fruitful abundant life that God in Christ Jesus offers to each and everyone of us.  When I am following Jesus and only Jesus, I find that nothing bothers me because I am engulfed in God's peace and presence.

God is speaking and saying, "I don't want your acts and deeds, I want you and your love."  Are you ready to be enrolled into the school of God's Holy Fire?  I want to become totally empty so that Jesus can fill me with only Himself.  There is such freedom, joy, simplicity, and happiness of the Spirit led life.  God is stripping me bare naked and many of us don't like to be so exposed and vulnerable but unless this happens, happiness will be more an idea to pursue than a lifestyle which is lived.

God is taking me back to be a spiritual child again.  God is leading me into the deep waters of His Holy Spirit.  This used to be a place I feared but now it's the river of life I want to exist and live in.  God is giving me such a carefree freedom, such a happy contentment that I can not really even fully describe it.  I'm happy like a young child who makes his first best friend.  I am happy like a school boy on his way to his first day at school.  I am happy like a star-struck teen on his first date.  I am happy like a father who first sees his newborn child.

What is the secret of happiness?  A heart full of Jesus.  What is the secret to everything?  To love everything with God's love in you.  Where do we find the love of God?  The only place is the cross of Christ.  If there is anything worthwhile in life, anything worth sacrificing everything for, anything that comes with great difficulty and wonderful blessings it is the pathway of the cross of Christ.  This is the pathway to happiness!