Everyday, I’m encounter  believers making decisions based on the idea that what God wants most for us is to be happy.  Not just content but happy, happy, happy.  In principle that is true. After all, David wrote, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps.37:4).  The problem, however,  rests on our notion of what makes us happy.

Some read the verse above and assume that if we serve God in some capacity and sing songs to him on Sunday, he will give us whatever we want as long as we believe that object, person, or circumstance will make us happy.  Unfortunately, that desire often comes from of the flesh rather than the Spirit.  We want a car so we think God should pony up with our dream vehicle.  We want a big salary so we think God should give us favor for the promotion.  We want the girl or the guy and may even think that God is okay with us leaving a spouse that no longer excites us for one that promises passion and romance because…that will make us happy.  All of that is a huge lie from the enemy, but it is a very powerful lie because we live in a culture that reinforces that belief at every level.  How many ads on television push a product that will change your life and assure you that you “deserve” what that product promises.  Honestly, the only thing any of us deserve is hell…and the rest is God’s grace.

A retake on Psalm 37:4 may be in order. First of all, the promise is based on the premise that you delight in the Lord.  You cannot delight in the Lord unless you also delight in his ways, his values, and his priorities.  If you delight in those, then the desires of your heart will line up with his and he will be glad to honor those desires.  Secondly, the verse may be best understood not as God giving you whatever desire springs from you, but God actually planting his desires in your heart so that they become your desires.  He will give you the desires….

Satan is an expert at convincing us that God will give us things that are contrary to his will simply because that is what will make us happy.  As many others have said, God wants us to be holy much more than happy.  The truth is that holiness is what produces long-term happiness. Paul is very clear in Galatians that if we sow to the flesh, we will reap destruction, but if we sow to the Spirit we will reap life.  Those things that we purse based on desires and reasoning from the flesh will eventually produce pain, loss, shame, and destruction. That is God’s promise.  To think differently is to mock God.  Happiness does not lie in that direction, although the devil will assure us that bliss is at the end of the road.

Even more diabolical, is the reality that a person’s decision to chase the desires of the flesh will bring pain, loss, and destruction on others who are innocent bystanders in the event.  Satan always convinces us that our decisions in pursuit of the appetites of the flesh affect only us but they will also affect all those with whom we have connections.  When a spouse leaves his or her mate for another, the spouse who is left behind as well as the children will suffer emotionally, economically, spiritually, relationally and in every other way.  When that person is a believer, the kingdom suffers loss, because once again, Jesus and his ways are discredited in the eyes of the world. Society suffers loss because one more decision has consigned marriage to the bin of disposable relationships. In addition, the sins of the fathers are passed down to the children and so forth.

Satan always convinces the one pursuing desires of the flesh that whatever pain is produced will be short lived and then later everyone will be fine.  That is never true.  The ripples from these decisions go out for decades because one day we decide that God wants us to be happy… on our terms.

Our prayer must be that God places his desires in our hearts rather than insisting that he make good the desires we ourselves have conjured up in our hearts or that Satan has planted there.  Godly desires produce life.  Fleshly desires breed death.  Period.  This “happiness thinking” among believers can be a very subtle thing until it takes root and then flourishes.  It invites in a lying spirit and a spirit of entitlement that both continue to insist that the believer has every right to be happy on his or her terms. Once it flourishes, it seems to undermine all spiritual reason and perception.  Beware of it in your own life and if you see it developing in others, point it out as a matter of concern rather than as a matter for condemnation.  It is a cancer in the church, much better prevented than treated.  If t takes root, it is certainly much better treated early than after it has spread to both the heart and brain.  At that point, life is truly in the balance.