Happiness is a much sought after topic, it has been
discussed for centuries. I believe every person on earth is searching for
happiness despite their different definitions of happiness. We may need to halt
and ask ourselves, “What are we yearning for?” Why is there always a sense of “not
enough”? Sonja Lyubomorsky, a professor of psychology at the University of
California poignantly states, “We quickly get used to many of the
accomplishments we strive for in life, such as leading the big job or getting
married, soon after we reach a milestone, we start to feel that something is
missing”. Cornelius Plantinga Jr. echoes that there is always a sense of “not
this” or “still beyond”.
We plunge ourselves into extravagant shopping and tempting
culinary to give us satisfaction. We are happy for the infinite choices that
the market offers us, yet ironically we are distressed with the amount of
choices and we often find ourselves in the state of not knowing what we want.
We are worried and distressed as we fear that we might miss out any good choice
or fail to satisfy ourselves satisfactorily. Soon we find ourselves in hedonic
treadmill – endless pursuit of happiness. What we call happiness turns out to
be superficial or happiness in disguise. Happiness seems “beyond reach” or
using J. R. R. Tolkien’s expression, “beyond the walls of the world”.
Back to our question, what are we truly yearning
for? According to C. S. Lewis, there is sense of Sehnsucht (spiritual
longing). Alas, we long for what has been lost.
But what has been lost? In order to understand this, we can look at the
first plot (Creation) of the main drama of the world – Creation (original
plan), Fall (problem) and Redemption / Re-Creation (solution). When God creates
out of emptiness, He proclaims all materials are good. He desires material to be good, to be managed
and to be enjoyed. Human beings, the crown of creation are created in His image
and likeness. As the image bearers of God, human beings are to mirror the glory
of God. Interdependency of Creation portrays the chain of relation of all
creations. With all these as the setting, God mandates human beings to work –
produce, develop for common good. They also receive the mandate to marry,
reproduce and to develop cultures and civilization.
However, sin has vandalized the ultimate purpose of
the Creator for creation. Human beings are alienated from their Creator, fellow
human beings and the nature. This state of estrangement is a tormenting misery.
Human beings yearn to recover this lost of harmony. Work is degraded to exploitation
with human pride and glory as the operating system. Marital life is also
distorted from Adam and Eve (monogamy) to Adam, Eve and Irene (polygamy), Adam
and Steve or Eve and Irene. Sexual union is disordered from covenantal
relationship to lustful desire for union not just with human beings but also
with other creatures.
Human beings are searching for “edenistic happiness”
or implanted “residual memory of the Paradise (David Naugle). We are searching
for the lost “relationship”, “divine DNA” and the “garden of Eden”. Due to our
disorderliness, what we love is potentially harmful to us. Tolkien’s character
of Smeagol best demonstrates such life. Smeagol’s love towards the ring
tormented his life entirely, both physical and spiritual making him “Gollum”. Or
put it in another words, human quest for happiness is disordered and harmful to
the seekers. Timothy Keller in his The Prodigal God has poignantly
showed us two paths of happiness demonstrated in the parable of the prodigal
sons. The path of the younger son is hedonistic, sensualistic, materialistic,
egoistic and against tradition whereas the path of the elder son is
materialistic, arrogant, egoistic, self-righteous, virtue-seeking and traditional.
The path we choose might be harmful to us.
Why aren’t we satisfied in our quest of happiness?
Why is there always something missing? The bible explains that God has also set
eternity in the hearts of men (including women), yet they cannot fathom what God
has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11). It is the spirit in
a man (again, including women), the breadth of the Almighty, that gives him understanding (Job 32:8).
Hence, only when divine nucleus (Anselm Grun), divine DNA
(Richard Rohr) or Sensus of divinitas (John Calvin) is recovered, we
cannot attain true happiness. Only when we recover what Augustine calls the “Summum
bonum” (the chief good) which is the Creator Himself, we cannot find
satisfaction. True happiness occurs only when human-divine union is attained –
one with God in Spirit (1 Cor 6:17) and “participate in the divine nature” (2
Peter 1:4).
God invites us, “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters; come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money
and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what
does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul
will delight in the richest of fare” (Isaiah 55:1-2). God offers us true
happiness. Yet before the full realization of God’s Kingdom, happiness can be
experienced paradoxically – happiness and pain. Christ (divine-human hybrid)
suffers rejection, homelessness, separation in order to bring us home to the
Father’s extravagant banquet which symbolized the infinite happiness. This is
our joyful homeward journey. Let us embark on this journey!
Batam, August 22, 2014
