[Transcript may not match broadcasted sermon word for word]

Happiness Point #36: The Top Isn’t Always the Best

       It is a common belief that arriving at the top, being the best in the game at something, is really the best place one can arrive. Sounds good. We hear it a lot. But the truth of the matter is that being at the top isn’t always the best. There are several reasons as why this is the case. We certainly don’t want to be at the bottom. That’s no fun. But for most of us, we aren’t going to want to be at the top either. This will become apparent as we evaluate the following issues with being at the top.

       First and foremost, being at the top isn’t always the best simply because we have a misperception of what that means to begin with. We have images in our minds of what it will look like. For instance, the businessperson who desires to reach the top of their branch or the top of the company may feel that that is where the happiness belongs. It’s true, the top will bring more money. There’s no doubt about that. It’s also true that the person’s title will be more prestigious. But what the person doesn’t realize is that generally speaking, the more responsibility the more the work. We’ve heard this before, haven’t we? It is as Jesus has taught us, that to whom much is given, much is required.

       A second problem with reaching the top is that in doing so, there is more height to fall in the case that something goes wrong. The person has climbed the ladder. They are higher and higher. That’s great. But mess up, do something wrong, give into temptation, and the fall to the ground is a long way. It’s going to hurt more. More people are going to see it. More people could criticize the fall. One has to ‘want’ the responsibility, to grab it by the horns, and not just seek it with ulterior motives. Not just to seek it for the benefits sake.

       Thirdly, as a person sits at their desk at the top, they are probably going to realize that people aren’t acting like they use to. Really, there are two kinds of people who are going to come out of the woodwork. Those are the jealous people. That’s inevitable. People get jealous of other’s accomplishments, especially when they’ve reached the height of something. Attacks could even occur as a result. The second type of person is the suck-up. These types will just say whatever makes the boss happy. They won’t tell him or her the truth. That can become a problem for the person at the top who wants to manage effectively.

       So, we can see here then that being at the top isn’t all roses and cherries. It isn’t everything it’s always propped up to be. Responsibility is greater, and people may act different.

Happiness Point #37: Any Obsession is Bad

       We all have things we wish to achieve in life. It’s just the way we naturally work here in American society. We can be seeking to advance in our career, train our son to become the best athlete ever, find that ‘perfect’ person and get engaged, or obtain the best collection or this or that. There is nothing necessarily wrong with any of these things. The problem for us comes when we become ‘obsessed’ with the drive to obtain. Our feelings and emotions can take over, and when that happens, our life can become all about that one thing, whatever it is.

       The first issue with obsession is that it enslaves us. The Bible warns us against sin because sin enslaves. Well, obsession enslaves too. That is because when we magnify something and make it more important than anything else, even if we are only doing this in our minds, it means we become a slave to reaching the end result of that obsession. It means that we have to win or we aren’t going to feel good. We have to ‘get’ whatever it is to feel complete again. This is a bad place to be in because we are already complete. We should never need any person or any thing to become complete. We are already complete in our relationship with God.

       A common temptation that people fall into is, “I have to have this person as my partner in order to feel complete. If I cannot work things out with this person, then my life is over.” We’ve all heard this, seen this, perhaps experienced this in a variety of ways. A person can become fixated with a certain other person that they want to spend the rest of their lives with. Perhaps they’ve been dating the person a while, or perhaps they haven’t even gone on a date with them. But we need to realize the fallacy in this type of thinking. Certainly there isn’t only one lover that can make us happy. The problem is that specialness has been attributed to the person liked beyond reason. Their importance has been magnified beyond what it should have been. If we lived okay before we met the person, we can live perfectly fine without them.

       The truth is, is that we don’t need any worldly person or possession in order to make us happy. The only person we actually need in life is God. God is all we truly need. Everything else is an option. A person could be sleeping under a bridge in downtown Columbus but if they have God, really, in reality, they are perfectly fine. A man could of just had his wife leave with the three children, but if he has God, really, he’s okay. A businessman could walk into the bank on Monday morning and see that $250,000 has been stolen from his account, but if he has God, it really doesn’t matter. All that does matter is God. Obsession isn’t balance. Obsession means something is wrong. It means the desire for something is too strong.

Happiness Point #38: Our Self-Pity Doesn’t Help Us

       I’m going to tell you a secret. Actually, I hope it isn’t a secret for you. But the truth is that Jesus has made us perfectly righteous in the here and now. Because we are in right relationship with God the Father as a result of our belief in Jesus, that means we have access to all of God’s power at our fingertips. That includes power over guilt inside of our minds. Probably it is true that you came to know God out of guilt. I mean, there had to be that foundation of sin that had built up inside of you, and you came to the point where you knew you couldn’t do it yourself—you couldn’t make the guilt go away.

       The beautiful thing is, is that when we give up guilt, our minds have a tendency to begin thinking in the right way. The rivers inside our minds start flowing in the right directions, and we have room for positive thoughts. Having come to God, we have relinquished our guilt. In doing that, we have a new identity that isn’t saturated in guilt. So, we’re not a ‘small’ person anymore because God has raised us up. The Bible even says he has seated us with Jesus in Heavenly places. Pretty remarkable. Think about this, and you start to feel even better.

       That being true, not all Christians come to terms with this truth. All of us have made a decision whether we realize it or not inside of our minds. We have chosen to continue to follow after guilt or we have chosen to begin the process of giving it up, of letting it go. A serious problem for those who don’t wish to give it up is that guilt produces a high—it’s a self-pity high. Let’s be honest, it can feel good to wallow in self-pity. The problem with that is that self-pity denies the truth. It denies what God has said about us. And by being pitiful, we cannot pursue happiness. We can’t be a victim and be happy at the same time.

       It is our Old Person, or what we might even call the ‘sin-nature,’ that delights in self-pity. Sure, we can sit around and say, “Life sucks. It’s horrible. See how I just got screwed in this situation. That’s just the way life works.” What the person doesn’t realize, though, is that thinking like this only breeds more thinking ‘like’ this. That is, it causes more negative thinking. And the more negative the thinking, the less the faith. The less the faith, the lesser God’s power flows in our lives. It’s just that simple. We were made to live happy lives, as Christians, but we cannot have any claim to that happiness while clinging to the old ways, the self-pitying ways. What a lot of the self-help teachers have told us then becomes true, that attitude actually is altitude.

Happiness Point #39: Do not Bully Others, but Help Them

       We are all aware that bullying occurs in school. Some children are bullied, and some are the ‘actual’ bullies. Bullying in the first place stems from some kind of internal problem. Sometimes the person bullying is just jealous of the other person, and wants what they have. At other times the person has internal conflicts due to problems at home, whatever those problems may be. Still yet, bullying can be done to gain approval of peers, and to try to look good in front of friends by seeing how clever one can be with wordplay and cracking jokes. So, there are a variety of reasons bullying occurs.

       All this being said, there simply is never a time that we should find ourselves bullying others. This discussion just isn’t for kids, because, unfortunately, as I myself have witnessed more than once, adults can bully as well. Personally, I have witnessed Christians say very derogatory things toward other Christians, and this in public settings, so much so that I wonder how in the world the person could have justified what they just said. I think sometimes it is due to just mere insensitivity and not being ‘careful.’ But at other times I think it is done under the cloak of proper ‘manhood’ (which, by the way, has no place in church or the Christian). It’s not manly to cut up others at the potential damage of relationships.

       I have also witnessed bullying among Christians in the form of sales. We know salespeople can be high pressure at times. Personally, I don’t think it’s ever appropriate for the Christian salesperson to be ‘high pressure.’ I need time to think, as do others, and the Bible calls us to have patience. Most of the time, I don’t make any decision fast. I take my time to think about it. As a matter of fact, I had a Christian working personally for me on a certain project, and he just became too pushy about the business. So, what did I do? Well, I fired him of course. I don’t care how good of a reputation he had had, for me he was too pushy, and he ended up not getting any more of my business as a result.

       I am a firm believer in that the more a group jokes, the more something is wrong. There shouldn’t be a need for excessive joking, even good natured joking. If you’re part of a Bible study that is full of joking, then something is wrong. Sure, you can a little bit, but excessive joking means the group is trying to ward off an ‘uncomfortable’ vibe for some reason. This can be the result of self-righteousness or pride in the air. It can the result of people in the group feeling inferior, and not having enough self-worth. But joking or teasing should never get to the point of bullying. If the person doesn’t take well to your joke, note that and don’t do it again. Don’t become a harasser. By avoiding treating others wrong, you only help yourself to feel good. And by stepping in when someone else is doing wrong, you can bring peace to a potentially bad situation.

Happiness Point #40: Commandments Often Don’t Explain

       As we read our Bibles, we notice there are commandments for sure. We are instructed on what the ‘big’ sins are, and that we should avoid these big sins at all costs. Why is that? Why do we avoid the big sins? We don’t practice them because they will take away our happiness. Sometimes this occurs right away, but for other sins it may not happen until later. The consequences may be delayed. And that delay only adds to the deception, and masks the fact that the sin actually is going to cause us harm.

       The point is that commandments are often shortcuts to help us. In saying they are shortcuts, I mean that they often don’t give us an explanation of why doing whatever it is is bad or wrong. They often don’t explain why acting in that way will take away our happiness. The quick form, however, the one word or sentence, allows us to easily remember what a sin actually is. They are like sayings or dictums. It’s good when we can easily identify what sin is so that we can avoid it.

       Another reason that the Bible often doesn’t explain the ‘why not’ behind not doing a certain behavior is simply because God doesn’t have to always explain why he doesn’t want us to do something. In other words, we keep a commandment, especially if it is an ordinance, in order to be pleasing to him. And by being pleasing to him, after the task is accomplished, we feel happy, right? Of course we feel happy. It might be so obvious to everyone, for instance, why Christians get water-baptized after believing in Jesus. We may even think that’s something we really don’t need to do. But if we don’t do that, then there is likely going to be that ‘cloud’ hanging over our heads nagging us to do it.

       The two greatest commandments have to do with love, right? Yes, we are first to love God with our whole beings, and then we are also to love our neighbors as we already love ourselves. These two commandments are given in the forms of summaries in the Bible. And, at times, it may not seem obvious why are we to do them. We may not feel like showing love all the time. But, in practice we know that when we do show love always, that we feel better, and we find that we are indeed happier. So, while we may not always understand the ‘why’ behind what we are doing, we know that if we want to feel good, it’s best to obey the commandments.

Happiness Point #41: Listing Our Mistakes Helps Us

       I am a firm believer that we should forget our mistakes. Why, even the Apostle Paul instructed the Philippian church to do so by his example. That’s what Paul practiced, and we are to be imitators of Paul. We also know that when we ‘let go’ of our mistakes, that they are buried in the soil of our brains. And like I said, that’s where they should be. Nonetheless, it can be beneficial, at a certain designated time, to dig up those mistakes briefly and consider them.

       How can it make us happier to dig up our past mistakes and look at them? Well, in doing so, we can note first that none of them destroyed our lives. It’s funny how it is, that at the time we made the mistake, it seemed much bigger than it does now. Isn’t that often the case? At the time, it seemed like the world was going to end. It seemed like our life might even be over, or permanently damaged. Yet, in considering the mistake we have written down on a piece of paper, we realize quickly that at the time we overhyped it. Usually it wasn’t as bad as we made it out.

       Another benefit to a brief considering of past mistakes is that we can also write down what we learned from making the mistake. Hopefully we learned something beneficial, or perhaps a couple of things, that we then put into practice in our lives. Perhaps we learned not to be so reckless in our stock investments, presuming upon the future that this stock is going to keep going up and up. Maybe it was learned that skipping your child’s recital didn’t go over too well. It didn’t go over well with the child, for he was upset for several days afterward, and it didn’t go well with the wife. When we learn new things, we can put those things into practice to give us happier lives.

       The reason it’s good to list our mistakes is so that we can see that mistakes are necessary to in fact grow. It’s just the way it is. There should never be long term regret over any mistake. Someone might say, “How is that? You’re crazy.” Nah, I don’t think that I am because with any mistake, no matter how small or big, there are things that we learn. Obviously, we weren’t trying to do wrong at the time we made the mistake, right? That’s usually the case. Okay, so you and I obviously didn’t possess all the knowledge we needed back at that time to make a better choice. Well, now after making the mistake, we do possess the knowledge. And this knowledge can surely help us in other related areas of life as well. It’s a domino effect of goodness.

Happiness Point #42: Don’t Skip Out on Prayer Time

       It seems so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be stated. And yet, skipping out on prayer time, or at least significant prayer time, can be a temptation for some. However, I think there is a direct correlation with the time we spend in prayer and our afterward happiness level. I think that’s usually the case. In fact, I am such a firm believer in praying that if for some odd reason I am crunched on time, say I overslept, and I have to skip something, I would rather skip my devotional reading time than skip the actual prayer time. It doesn’t matter if you have to do it in the shower or on your drive into work, taking time for prayer will help our day to be better.

       Remember, the sole reason for our existence on this earth is to practice our relationship with God. That is, it is to simply spend time with God. Technically, nothing else is as important. God created Adam and Eve in the Garden primarily to spend time with him. He would come down from Heaven and visit with them, one-on-one, in the garden. This was before they fell into sin. Even now, as we have been made right again by Jesus, we are again supposed to be spending time with God.

       Really, I have called this ‘prayer’ here because that’s what everyone can relate to. In reality though, I see a difference between the practice of prayer and mediation. I would go so far as to say that mediation is the real thing we are to be doing. I look at prayer as speaking this and that to God, asking for requests generally. Mediation, on the other hand, is just simply spending time with God, and not really asking anything from him. It is focusing on God instead of on what we think that we need. So, in that case, I would say mediation is more important than prayer.

       But prayer, asking God for our requests, does indeed help us throughout our day. This is because we have kept commandments in practicing prayer, thus being obedient, and we have requested God to help us. Like I’ve said in the past, the few times that I did skip prayer and try to start my day, I found that things just didn’t flow. It was like I didn’t have a special blessing on the day, or any extra help. That’s because I valued other things as being more important for living than I valued my relationship with God. That made things unhappy. So, for our maximum level of happiness, then, it’s good to put God first.

- Daniel Litton