"Happiness" by Randy Alcorn Book Review

 "I spent far ore time seeking happiness and longing for it than experiencing it," (4).

Can you relate? If you are a Christian, your next internal thoughts might go something like this: "But, in this life I am not promised happiness. To pursue happiness is worldly and wrong. Instead, I should pursue joy in Christ." After that self-rebuke, perhaps you roll up your sleeves to make it through another day. You likely are not sure what joy is, but you are determined to pursue it instead of fleeting happiness that is based on circumstances. However, part of you longs, still, to be happy. Secretly, in dark thoughts, you may wonder if becoming a Christian means you forfeit happiness, at least for this life.

Enter the very helpful study on "Happiness" by Randy Alcorn. This is a substantial volume in which Alcorn marshals Christian writers throughout history, especially Puritans, original language word studies, as well as modern research to support his main idea: Christians can and should be happy because God is happy and wants us to be happy. 

Personally, let me say that I was skeptical when I started reading the book. I worried that Alcorn was going to stray into the health-wealth gospel heresy or something like it (something he expressly deals with in Chapter 35). But the book's strength lies is Alcorn's ample research and biblical exposition. After laying out that biblical happiness means allowing secondary joys to point us to the Primary Source of happiness (God), Alcorn spends much of his time looking at the happiness of God. What a joy to consider the heart of Almighty God, and find that He is the Happy God.

• God takes joy in the animals He creates.
• God rejoices with gladness over His people He redeems.
• God is happy when someone repents from sin, like the father who welcomes home the prodigal son.
• God is so happy He can provide happiness to all He chooses (from Psalm 36:7-8).
• God spreads the gospel because He is the happy God (from 1 Timothy 1:11).
• God is Father loving Son loving Spirit. The triune nature of God shows He is forever happy.
• Jesus is portrayed as having superior gladness or happiness (see Hebrews 1:8-9 quoting Psalm 45:6-7).
• Jesus endured the cross because of the joy that was set before Him of accomplishing the Father's will and returning to the Father's side (see Hebrews 12:2).
• Jesus must have seemed happy enough for children to run to him, because children are drawn to happy adults (see Matthew 19:13-15).
• Many of Jesus' statements reveal He had enormous wit and a keen sense of humor (like a camel through the eye of a needle, or a plank in one's eye).

Further, the pursuit of happiness is entirely natural. We do what we most want to do. That is an axiom of human existence. The question is not will we seek happiness but where and where can happiness be truly found. Alcorn summarized, "God made us to be happy because he himself truly wants us to be happy," (34). If we seek happiness in the creation as ends in themselves, we turn secondary blessings into primary ones, and they cannot sustain our happiness. We make good things into gods, and they make lousy gods. Thus, idolatry holds no promise for lasting happiness, but God does. 

Hebrews words like samach and asher, as well as Greek words like makarios and chara have semantic ranges that include both happiness and joy. So to introduce a sharp division between joy and happiness is to go beyond the biblical text. In many contexts, happiness fits as well as joy, because the Bible implies a happy emotion.

• "Happy [asher] is he whose helps is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God" (Psalm 146:5, RSV, 197).
• "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you believe. Those are happy [makarios] who have never seen Me and yet believe!" (John 20:29, NLV, 203).

Alcorn's point is that joy and happiness are more likely closer to synonyms than antonyms. When we hear the word "blessed" we should think "how happy is that person," because that captures well how startling and good was the news Jesus preached.

So, what is Alcorn's advice for us in pursuing happiness?

• Happiness is a choice. We must pursue happiness in God, God's way. So, read your Bibles, go to church, serve others, give generously, love well, enjoy as praise. 
• Pursue wise choices, not sinful ones, and you will be pursuing happiness God's way.
• "The straight path to happiness is devoting ourselves to the happiness of others," (291).
• "Giving is a great source of happiness," (293).
• Celebrate well things God says are worth celebrating. By this he means throw great parties around great things like when a child gets baptized or a college student returns from her first foreign mission trip.
• Meditate deeply on God's Word and find in Scripture a lasting happiness.
• Confess sins, repent, and experience the happiness of God's forgiveness in Christ.
• Focus on God and on others and experience the happiness of self-forgetfulness.
• "Gratitude unleashes the freedom to live content in the moment, rather than being anxious about the future or regretting the past," (quote from Ellen Vaughn, 365).
• Lower expectations of this fallen world and be surprised pleasantly by the happiness available now.
• Spend ample time looking forward to the future happiness of eternity with God.

On the final point, Alcorn summarized well, "When we hang on, white-knuckled, to this life, it proves our disbelief in an afterlife that is physical (with real health), material (with real wealth), social (with real culture and relationships), and personal (with real happiness and continuance of our identity)," (390).

Christian, God wants you to be happy because He is happy and made you to find happiness primarily in Him. He has detailed the ways to the happy life in His Word and modeled the happy life when He came in the flesh. He promises us eternal happiness with Him. We live in a fallen world and the truly happy life will be hard and risky, but full and rewarding. I highly recommend "Happiness" by Randy Alcorn.