Does God want you to be happy? How you answer this question will show a lot about your worldview - what you believe about reality and your place in this world. If you say, “Of course not” or “that doesn’t matter” then you will embrace a practically materialistic worldview in which you work to be the master of your own fate. This sounds liberating, but in fact it is crushing. Your shoulders were not meant to carry the weight of creating your own soul-satisfying purpose in this world. Any design we concoct cannot measure up to the deep yearning of our hearts for happiness.
What if you answer, “Yes, of course God wants me to be happy”? Well then you must decide what happiness looks like. In fact every human being is hard-wired by our Creator to want to be happy. From my one-year-old baby girl choosing what to put on her biscuit this morning to the President deciding how to lead the nation, an axiom of human existence is that we always do what we most want to do given the limitations of our temporal and spacial existence.
Ok, so where are we going with this? In the history of Israel, God once provided for their rescue by having Moses hammer and mold a bronze snake (see Numbers 21:8-9). When the people needed healing they only had to look in faith at the snake raised on a pole and they would be healed. What a beautiful Gospel picture! In fact, Jesus connected himself metaphorically to the snake (see John 3:14-15). Undeniably, the bronze snake was a good thing, a gift from God to help the Israelites be happy. When the choice is between being bitten by a snake and dying and being healed by looking up at a bronze snake on a pole, who could deny that it would make one happy to look up at the snake?
But, if we fast forward several hundred years in Israelite history, we see that the good thing that promoted happiness has become a bad thing that robs the people of happiness. King Hezekiah had to confront the people for the way they had corrupted their worship with the ancient bronze snake Moses made:
“And he [Hezekiah] did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).” (2 Kings 18:3-4)
The people corrupted the good gift from God by worshiping the gift (the bronze snake, even naming it as if it were alive). There was nothing wrong with the snake. God used the snake to heal (when the Israelites looked to it raised on a pole with eyes of faith). God even used this healing miracle to prepare future generations to understand his Son, who similarly would be lifted up to bring about a healing miracle for all who look to Him with eyes of faith.
So, how did this good become bad? Paul detailed the sad fall of mankind from worshiping God to worshiping idols:
“Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (see Romans 1:22-23)
Good becomes bad when we worship the good thing instead of the good God who gave us the good thing. Here’s where anything can become bad. God does want for us to be happy. The happiest we can be is when we truly enjoy what is most enjoyable. There is none better for our hearts to enjoy than God Himself. Truly we were made to be happy, because we were made to worship. But, our hearts are so designed that we will only be truly happy when we are worshiping what is truly worthy of worship. And, the only One worthy of worship is the Triune God revealed in the Bible.
There is freedom in this truth revealed. By smashing Nehushtan, King Hezekiah was working to not only obey God, but also to help his people be happy. He knew that by worshiping this snake instead of the God who gave it, they were actually being deprived of the joy of worshiping the One who deserved worship. They were settling for a cheap substitute (a piece of metal that could do nothing) and missing out on the excellent (the only God).
Here’s the freedom - God wants us to enjoy Him and has made a beautiful creation to help our hearts love, trust, adore and worship Him. Have you ever watched a child be mesmerized by an insect or a lizard? There is a simple joy in the way my 8-year-old catches a lizard and shows me this creature. This can and should be a happy thing. Hoping to steer her in the right direction we will often talk about how amazing God is to create such interesting creatures. I don’t need to tell her, “Don’t enjoy that lizard because it’s not God.” Instead we can enjoy the lizard well, “That is such an amazing creature. God must be even more amazing than we thought to craft such a wonderful creature.”
The bottom line is that God does want us to be happy and He knows that the only way for us to truly be happy is to worship Him. He does mean for us to enjoy the creation He has made, but not as worship ends or objects. Instead, we are to enjoy creation as a way to direct our hearts to worship Him, the only Creator God. If some thing becomes our functional god so that we worship it instead of God, then the good has become bad, and we will not be happy.
Here are some helpful questions to discuss with someone you trust or to journal through:
Describe a time and place when you simply enjoyed something in creation.
Have you ever felt guilty for enjoying God’s creation? If so, why?
Do you think God wants you to be happy? Why or why not?
What are some ways we might be able to tell when a good thing has become a bad thing (or when we are beginning to worship the thing rather than God)?
What is one way this week you might enjoy God through the creation He has made?
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