What Victoria Osteen Got Right
Did I just write that? Yes, because although she got a lot wrong, she said some right and important things too. Here’s what she said:

I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God–I mean, that’s one way to look at it–we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we are happy. . . . That’s the thing that gives Him the greatest joy. . . .

So, I want you to know this morning — Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. . . . When you come to church, when you worship him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?

So what’s wrong and what’s right about this?

She was wrong in saying that when we obey or worship God “we are not doing it for God.” That’s so obviously unbiblical and ridiculously false. If she had inserted one extra word and said “we are not doing it only for God,” I doubt any of us would be thinking and writing about her. (And in her defense, she did go on to slightly qualify “we’re not doing it for God” by saying “I mean, that’s one way to look at it.”)

She was also wrong in her prioritizing of human happiness. She believes that you come to church worship for your own happiness first of all, which subsequently makes God happy. No, no, no. We come to church to glorify God, to make Him happy, as it were, which subsequently makes us happy.

But she was right in two important points. First, she was right in that obedience and worship do benefit and bless us. They do make us happy and they were meant to. Just this morning I was reading Psalm 135v5 which says:

Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;
Sing praises to His name, for it is pleasant.

Charles Spurgeon comments on the second line of this verse:

Sing praises unto his name, for it is pleasant. The adjective may apply to the singing and to the name—they are both pleasant. The vocal expression of praise by sacred song is one of our greatest delights. We were created for this purpose, and hence it is a joy to us. It is a charming duty to praise the lovely name of our God. All pleasure is to be found in the joyful worship of Jehovah; all joys are in his sacred name as perfumes lie slumbering in a garden of flowers. The mind expands, the soul is lifted up, the heart warms, the whole being is filled with delight when we are engaged in singing the high praises of our Father, Redeemer, Comforter. When in any occupation goodness and pleasure unite, we do well to follow it up without stint: yet it is to be feared that few of us sing to the Lord at all in proportion as we talk to men.

Second, she was right to say that God wants us to be happy and that God is happy when we are happy, “that’s the thing that gives him greatest joy.”

I’m going to come back to this second point shortly, because a lot of the Reformers and Puritans actually agree with Victoria Osteen here and were not as reluctant as we often are to use the word “happy” or “happiness” to describe God or the Christian’s experience.

What Al Mohler Got Wrong
Did I just write that?

Yes, because although 90% of his article hit the target, he overshot the mark in a couple of important areas.

First, the title: “Mere happiness cannot bear the weight of the Gospel.” I get the point he’s trying to make but happiness per se is no trifling triviality. The adjective “mere” does not belong in the same company as “happiness.” It’s like saying “mere Everest” or the “mere Atlantic.” There’s nothing “mere” about either of these and there’s nothing “mere” about happiness.

Together with four research assistants I’ve spent the summer researching what the Reformed tradition has said about happiness – beginning with Calvin and Luther, through the Puritans, up to the Princeton era of Charles Hodge and Archibald Alexander.

It’s amazing how much they spoke and wrote about happiness (I’ve got over a thousand references), how they prioritized happiness for God and us, and how they gave many theological and practical helps to happiness. If they’d seen Dr. Mohler’s headline, they would have choked on their oatmeal and exploded, “Mere happiness? Mere happiness? Happiness is not “mere.” It’s massive and it’s massive to God.”

Many of them, like Victoria Osteen, also believed that God is happy, made us to be happy, and is most happy when we are happy. Sure, they wouldn’t have recognized the Osteen version of happiness, but neither would they have recognized the Mohler diminishing of happiness.

Second, they also would take issue with Dr. Mohler’s attempt to distinguish between happiness and joy. He wrote:

The divine-human relationship is just turned upside down, and God’s greatest desire is said to be our happiness. But what is happiness? It is a word that cannot bear much weight. As writers from C. S. Lewis to the Apostle Paul have made clear, happiness is no substitute for joy. Happiness, in the smiling version assured in the Age of Osteen doesn’t last, cannot satisfy, and often is not even real.

In response, how about this quote from Archibald Alexander that says God is a happiness promoter:

God is good. His goodness is manifest in every work of his wisdom, for he has so continued and arranged all things in the best manner, to promote the happiness of his creatures, according to their nature and capacity.

Or this from Jeremiah Burroughs where he “channels” Victoria Osteen in the last line:

God is the only source of real happiness. He does not need anything or anyone to make him happy: even before he made the world, the three persons of the Trinity were completely happy with each other. What God does for Christians is to make them as happy as he is.

Or what about this brief selection from the ultra-dour John Calvin:

If it is the very summit of happiness to enjoy the presence of God, is it not miserable to lack it?

It is, indeed…our only true happiness, to be received into God’s favor, so that we may be really united to him in Christ.

But the Spirit of God promises a happy life to none except to the meek, and those who endure evils; and we cannot be happy except God prospers our ways; and it is the good and the benevolent, and not the cruel and inhuman, that he will favor.

The beginning of our happiness is when God receives us into favor; so the more he confirms his love in our hearts, the richer blessing he confers on us, so that we become happy and prosperous in all things.

God is said to bless us, when he crowns our undertakings with success, and, in the exercise of his goodness, bestows upon us happiness and prosperity; and the reason is, that our enjoyments depend entirely upon his pleasure.

I could go on and on (and one day I will), but for further proof of the Reformed Traditions’ positive focus on happiness let me direct you to the stunningly beautiful first chapter of Dane Ortlund’s new book Jonathan Edwards on the Christian Life.

Edwards speaks of divine beauty not only in terms of holiness but also in terms of happiness. I call this striking because our instinct even as believers is to set holiness and happiness over against one another. For Edwards, it is both or neither. The two rise and fall together.

There’s one sermon in which Edwards said: “It is a thing truly happifying to the soul of men to see God.” And later on he refers to the “beatific, happifying sight of God.”

Ortlund concludes:

So God communicates to his people of his own happiness. They are partakers of that infinite fountain of joy and blessedness by which he himself is happy. God is infinitely happy in himself, and he gives his people to be happy in Him.

Reactionary or Reformed Theology
Whenever serious error arises, like the Osteens’ Prosperity Gospel message, we’re always at risk of framing our theology in opposition to the error rather than by taking it straight from the Bible. Reformed Theology re-forms the biblical message from the Bible; Reactionary Theology forms theology in opposition to an error. In doing so – whether it’s in reaction to secular psychology, moralistic preaching, legalism, antinomianism, or the prosperity gospel – we run the real risk of going too far the other way and losing biblical vocabulary and concepts.

I don’t want the Osteens’ happiness. But neither do I want to lose true biblical happiness. I steadfastly refuse to let the Osteens’ steal this beautiful biblical word from me or the Church. Instead, let’s reclaim it and fill it with biblical ballast. By doing so we can surely out-happify the Osteens. And yes, that kind of happiness will pass the Mosul test.

UPDATE: In response to a commenter looking for my definition of happiness, here are a few previous posts I’ve written on the subject.

40 Joys Through Jesus

The Happiest People in the World

What is Christian Happiness?

Why is happiness such hard work?

A Very Different and Unexpected Happiness

But no longer, according to a special survey commissioned for The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute and headlined in an article Americans Are No Longer Optimists:

• Nearly two-thirds of Americans—65 percent—question whether America will be on the right track in 10 years.
• Most doubt whether American will be a “land of opportunity” in 10 years (33 percent say yes, 42 percent say no, and 24 percent say they don’t know).
• The American Dream seems to be fading with seven in ten Americans cynical about whether working hard and playing by the rules will bring success in the future.
• While 56 percent of parents believe college will be increasingly important in the coming years, less than one third—29 percent—believe they will be able to afford to pay for their children to go.
• Only three in 10 Americans now believe our global standing will be rising in 10 years; 43 percent think it will be declining.
• 64 percent of parents believe it will be difficult for their children to find good jobs in 10 years.
• Only African Americans and Hispanics believe America is on the right track and will remain a land of opportunity.
• Women are even more pessimistic than men.

Those who commissioned the poll conclude: “All we can say, then, is that Americans are full of uncertainty and pessimism about the next 10 years.”

Gospel Potential
How do you react when you read such statistics? Do you think “We’re doomed, we’re doomed, we’re all doomed!”

Or do you think, “What an opportunity for the church of Christ and the Gospel of grace!”

I hope the latter. There’s such an opening here for the good news, so wide that it’s just about an open goal without a goalkeeper. It’s like a 21st century version of Ecclesiastes.

If there’s any group of people that can offer a wonderful counter-cultural message surely it’s Christians who can passionately and compassionately communicate the Gospel of grace in all its fullness. Let’s stop moaning and groaning with the rest of the culture, and tell our despairing world about all that Jesus offers:

• Truth in a world full of lies
• Peace in a world full of war
• Love in a world full of hate
• Life in a world full of death
• Forgiveness in a world full of vengeance
• Power in a world full of weakness
• Certainty in a world full of confusion
• Purpose in a world full of pointlessness
• Beauty in a world full of ugliness
• Hope in a world full of despair
• Family in a world full of loneliness
• Guidance in a world full of mazes
• Goodness in a world full of badness
• Relationship in a world full of alientation
• God in a world full of the Devil
• Salvation in a world full of sin
• An unshakeable Kingdom in a world of crumbling empires
• A perfect leader in a world full of failed leadership
• And, yes, optimism in a world full of pessimism.

My next congregation was somewhere in the region of 230 people with a subsequent increase in crises and tragedies, including road traffic deaths, miscarriages, and, most painfully of all, a suicide.

The next congregation I was associated with was one of over 600 people, although I was not a pastor in this church. I immediately noticed a massive spike in the number of really, really sad events. Every church bulletin had long lists of sick and dying people. Almost every other Sunday, there was somebody in the congregation, or related to someone in the congregation, who had received terminal diagnosis, lost a child, died in tragic circumstances, or had been in a terrible accident.

I’m now pastoring again, and I have no idea of the size of this church (never counted), but comparing it with the last church I pastored in, it looks quite similar, let’s just say 200+. I’ve immediately noticed that although there are many trying situations for people, there are far less sad things than in the big church I was a member in.

Big Question
This raises a big difficulty for larger congregations. How do you make people aware of the prayer needs of people in desperately sad situations without totally depressing the whole congregation all the time?

The bigger the congregation, the much greater likelihood there is of there always being some major sadness (and often more than one) in front of people’s minds. That kind of thing, week in week out, can take a massive emotional toll on people, especially those who are tender-hearted and sympathetic, who can all too easily feel the pain that others are feeling.

In other situations I’ve seen ministers who in some ways revel in the constant drama of it all and almost seem to live for the next crisis in order to hype it up and position themselves as indispensably important and involved.

Balanced Burden Bearing
Now, of course, we don’t want to be hard and unfeeling towards suffering people. We don’t want to resent them “disturbing the peace of our little lives.” We must be willing to carry the burdens of others who are suffering; carry them mentally, emotionally, spiritually, prayerfully and practically.

But most of us can’t carry all the burdens that are associated with being in a large congregation. And I don’t believe God expects us to either. It’s so crushing. So what can be done to get the balance right here?

Celebrate
First, congregations must give equal weight to celebrating the good things. Births, marriages, graduations, and healings shouldn’t be ignored or demoted to a tag-on in bulletins and prayer requests. We must rejoice with those who rejoice. If we don’t, then we present not only an unbalanced picture of life but also of God.

Censor
Second, pastors have to be careful not to share too much information with the whole congregation. The more details of a certain case that are given, the more painful emotions the hearers will experience. Much of the details should be reserved for people who are intimately involved in the situation – family members, close friends, elders. Otherwise, we are gratuitously afflicting people’s ears, minds, and hearts who can do nothing about the situation and who may not even know the people involved.

Divide
Third, most large churches are divided into districts or areas. If you are a member and you are finding that you just can’t handle all the agonizing prayer needs from so many people (and you can’t), why not mentally limit yourself to thinking and praying about only those who are in your area. It’s probably still a hundred people or so, but it’s a lot more “normal” a number to be concerned about.

Generalize
Fourth, except in exceptional cases, maybe the public prayer could cover sick and needy people in general rather than sounding like a doctor’s report on a large ward. And maybe district prayer meetings could cover the sick and needy in more personal and detailed terms. That will cut down the number of needs to cover and carry in the congregational prayer.

There’s no easy answer to this. We don’t want to create a false impression that life is great for everyone and no one has any trouble. On the other hand, neither do we want to create the false impression that everyone is dying or suffering. Both create spiritually damaging climates that eventually depress and demoralize God’s people. The unbalanced overemphasis on suffering and sadness also leaves indelible marks on children and young people.

His “pen-pals” don’t just disagree with him. They hate him. He says he wouldn’t mind people saying he’s wrong, or even ridiculing him, but it’s the rage he was unprepared for. He tries to explain this inexplicable hostility:

1. The online world of comments and commentary does skew negative.

2. People who agree and support his view are less likely to express that compared with those who oppose it; agreement is more passive whereas anger is more active.

3. It contradicts what many people believe and experience. “Positive views on the present are seen as a slap in the face by people who have negative experiences, which, according to some polls, is the majority of Americans.” As an aside Karrabel notes:

4. Americans of the past few years are less positive about the future than they have been at any point since the 1970s.

5. The losers in any changing economy are going to be more vocal that those who have made gains.

If it bleeds, it leads
I’d add a couple more reasons. First is that bad news sells better than good news. “If it bleeds, it leads” is the mantra of so much of our media. As Dr. Bradley Wright explains in Upside: Surprising Good News about the State of our World:

The media sells negative worldviews. It’s not that reporters, writers, and editors are pessimistic people; rather, they have a strong incentive to tell us about the fearful, scary, and dangerous happenings in our world. The media is a business, and it succeeds by attracting viewers and readers. With hundreds of television channels and even more online news sources, how can they do this? One way is to offer something that is truly frightening. If watching a story can save us from some imminent danger, then maybe we’ll stop channel surfing long enough to watch it. If reading a report can protect us from a health scare, maybe we’ll pick the magazine off the rack. Sensationalism and fear sells—this is a fact of life that won’t change anytime soon. (Upside, 36)

We then get so used to the daily diet of disaster, decline, destruction, and death, that when someone tries to feed us something good and healthy, we often choke on it.

Second, there’s our fallen human nature which is warped towards the darkness (John 3:19). Gretchen Rubin calls this our “negativity bias”:

Our reactions to bad events are faster, stronger, and stickier than our reactions to good events. In fact, in practically every language, there are more concepts to describe negative emotions than positive emotions… It takes at least five positive marital actions to offset one critical or destructive action (The Happiness Project, 48).

Swallowed and Succumbed
With a few happy exceptions, Christians in general have also swallowed our culture’s negative narrative and have succumbed to our innate negativity bias. We seem to be addicted to bad and sad news, and have become so used to feeding on it that we don’t even realize it. In fact, in some circles, happiness has almost become synonymous with heresy. “He’s happy? To the stake!”

How then to recover a more balanced view? First, as Karrabel suggests, without closing our eyes to faults and failings, we must stop focusing relentlessly on what isn’t working:

Every society must find some balance between addressing real shortcomings and building on real strengths. The United States in particular oscillates between excessive self-congratulation (“the indispensable nation,” “the freest nation on Earth”) and extreme self-criticism.

Christians have to work harder at feeding upon (and feeding to each other) the good news that God is filling the world with.

Second, we have to read our Bibles and change the narrative from one of pessimism to one of optimism. No, we don’t believe in the inevitability of evolutionary progress. But we do believe in a sovereign and good God though, who makes His sun to shine and His rain to fall on the good and the evil, and whose tender mercies are over all His works. We do believe in God’s common grace witnessing to Him and making hearts glad (Acts 14:17). Above all, we believe in the power of the Gospel, way more than in the power of the American Presidency, to change our lives and to change our world.

If we’re going to be hated, let’s be hated for being Christian optimists.

At least that’s what the devil tells us.

You can have either happiness or holiness but you cannot have both.

And given the choice, most try happiness.

Wouldn’t it be great if God had said somewhere that holiness and happiness are inseparable, that you can’t have one without the other.

What, He did? Where? What exactly did He say?

“This day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”” (Neh. 8:9).

The people had rightly mourned over their sins, but there came a point when their weeping went on too long and too deep, and God said through Nehemiah, “This is a holy day. Therefore let it be a happy day.”

He underlines by saying, “Go home, have a feast, and celebrate with your friends and family, because this is a holy day.”

The logic is inescapable. Happiness is not only compatible with holiness, it is an essential part of it. Without happiness, holiness is incomplete. Indeed, it is no longer holiness.

But what kind of happiness are we talking about?

Nehemiah defines it as “the joy of the Lord.” It is a joy that comes from God and is centered in God. God gives it and God is it. And given that the people had been repenting of their sins, this can only be an Old Testament call to joyful faith in God as their Savior from sin.

And as if we needed another reason to pursue, accept, and enjoy the happiness of holiness, Nehemiah adds the motive: “For the joy of the Lord is your strength!”

Holy happiness strengthens us. It produces defensive and offensive strength. It powerfully protects us from evil and it empowers us to fight for good.

Holiness, happiness, and hardiness. A blessed trinity from the Blessed Trinity!

Love other Christians.

Yes, loving other Christians produces the triple benefit of encouraging believers, evangelizing unbelievers (Jn. 13:35), and assuring ourselves that we are believers (1 Jn. 3:14, 19).

But how do we do this? Yesterday I gave my congregation 10 Love Challenges that  translate the sometimes nebulous idea of love into very practical, do-able actions. In some ways each action might not seem very much; each challenge has only one fairly quick and easy action per month. However, when multiplied by 100 or 200 Christians, the cumulative effect on your whole congregation could be huge.

Love Challenge 1: Pray for one family
What better way to love someone than to pray for them? As well as praying generally for your church, pray for specific and special needs in your church family, and for one other family in particular. Use the church directory or membership list to select one family to pray for regularly in the next 30 days.

Love Challenge 2: Speak to one person
We all have our favorite people and our favorite places to sit and stand in church. Why not sit somewhere different, exit through a different door, or stand in a different place and risk meeting a different person! Just once a month, do something different that will make you speak to someone you don’t usually speak to.

Love Challenge 3: Encourage one person
You appreciate many people in your church family, but have you ever told them that? Have you ever highlighted one of their gifts or graces and told them how thankful to God you are for them? Again, not asking for a lot here, but just once a month, go out of your way to find one person and encourage them.

Love Challenge 4: Carry one burden
Speak to someone who is suffering in your church and ask them how they are. It may be someone who is ill, someone struggling with a wayward child, someone who’s struggling financially. As you listen to their story, express concern, and feel sympathy, a strange thing happens – the sufferer’s pain reduces slightly as you take some of it into your own mind, heart, and soul. Although you walk away heavier, they walk away lighter.

Love Challenge 5: Visit one person
Perhaps start with the seniors, the sick, and those with special needs, but select one person in your church to visit once in the next 30 days. If you can’t do it in person, you can “visit” by phone.

Love Challenge 6: Give one gift
Share your abundance with those who lack. There are people and families in your church who cannot afford to buy a book, go out for a meal, go on vacation, or even buy all the groceries. $10 gets them a book, $20 gets a couple a meal at Applebees, $50 gets them a day camping, $100 would make a huge difference to their family grocery budget. Give as the Lord as prospered you.

Love Challenge 7: Forgive one person
Is there someone you’ve fallen out with? A strained relationship? Whether you are the offender, they are, or you both are, make one attempt to reconcile with them. If you can’t make progress in reconciliation, at least speak to them, express interest in them, and show affection towards them.

Love Challenge 8: Welcome one person
Different people visit your church every month – vacationers, friends and family of church members, strangers, seekers, church-hoppers, etc. Don’t leave it to others to welcome them. Take the initiative, go out of your way to show that you’re glad they came, exchange contact details, etc.

Love Challenge 9: Share one meal
Once a month invite someone, a single, a couple, or a family to share a meal with you in your home. Don’t make it fancy or complicated (or you won’t do it again) but simple, informal, and do-able. The focus should be the fellowship not the food.

Love Challenge 10: Relegate one preference
There are some things in church life and the Christian life that are a matter of biblical principle. These things we cannot let go of, we cannot demote, we cannot dismiss. Other things are a matter of personal preference – clothing, hobbies, sports, education choices, etc. When we make our preference equivalent to principles we inevitably erect barriers between us and others, we put others down and puff ourselves up. Search your life for one preference that you’ve turned into a principle, relegate it, let it go, and watch your relationships improve.

If you want to take up The Love Challenge, why not download this checklist, share it at your church, and watch the impact not only on believers, but also on unbelievers, and upon your own heart too.

That was confirmed for me recently when I asked a friend who has done a lot of interviewing of job candidates, “What’s the one thing you look for above all others when you want to hire someone?” He said that most interviewers look for experience, or qualifications, or sharp answers in the interview, but he looks for one thing, “Teachability.”

As I think back over all the people I’ve known, I have to agree, those who are teachable, and remain so, usually succeed. The unteachable usually fail. This is true in business, in ministry, in marriage, in parenting, in education, in relationships, and in many other areas of life.

So how do I know if I’m wise or foolish? In Chapter 7 of Necessary Endings, Henry Cloud supplies a checklist to help us identify whether someone is willing to receive and act upon feedback. Here’s a slightly edited version of that list:

Traits of Wise Persons

• When you give them feedback, they listen, take it in, and adjust their behavior accordingly.
• When you give them feedback, they embrace it positively. They say things like, “Thank you for telling me that. It helps me to know I come across that way. Or “Thanks for caring enough to bring this to my attention. I needed to hear this.”
• They own their performance, problems, and issues and take responsibility for them without excuses or blame.
• Your relationship is strengthened as a result of giving them feedback. They thank you for it, and see you as someone who cares enough about them to have a hard conversation. They experience you as being for their betterment.
• They empathize and express concern about the results of their behavior on others. If you tell them that something they are doing hurts you, you get a response that shows that it matters to them. “Wow, I didn’t realize I had hurt you like that. I never would want to do that. I am sorry.”
• They show remorse. You get a feeling that they have genuine concern about whatever the issue is and truly want to do better.
• In response to feedback, they go into future-oriented problem-solving mode. “I see this. How can I do better in the future?”
• They do not allow problems that have been addressed to turn into patterns. They change. They adjust and fix them.

Traits of Foolish Persons

• When given feedback, they are defensive and immediately come back at you with a reason why it is not their fault.
• When a mistake is pointed out, they externalize the mistake and blame someone else.
• Unlike the wise person, with whom talking through issues strengthens your relationship, with the foolish person, attempts to talk about problems create conflict, alienation, or a breach in the relationship.
• Sometimes, they immediately shift the blame to you, as they “shoot the messenger” and make it somehow your fault. “Well, if you had given me more resources, I could have gotten it done. But you cut my budget.” The energy shifts, and suddenly you find yourself the object of correction.
• They often use minimization, trying to in some way convince you that “It’s not that bad” or “This really isn’t the problem that you think it is. It’s not that big a deal.”
• They rationalize, giving reasons why their performance was certainly understandable.
• Excuses are rampant, and they never take ownership of the issue.
• Their emotional response has nothing to do with remorse; instead they get angry at you for being on their case, attacking with such lines as “You never think I do anything right,” or “How could you bring this up after all I have done?” Or they go into the “all bad” position, saying something like “I guess I can’t do anything right,” which is a cue for you to rescue them and point out how good they really are.
• They have little or no awareness or concern for the pain or frustration that they are causing others or the mission.
• Their stance is one of anger, disdain, or some other fight-or-flight response. They either move against you or move away from you as a result.
• They see themselves as the victim, and they see the people who confront them as persecutors for pointing out the problem. They feel like the morally superior victim and often find someone to rescue them and agree with how bad you are for being “against” them.
• Their world is divided into the good guys and the bad guys. The good ones are the ones who agree with them and see them as good, and the bad ones are the ones who don’t think that they are perfect.

Car crashes, even fatal ones, are accidents; no one sets out to deliberately injure or kill with their car. Cancer is also an impersonal attacker, an internal cellular malfunction.

But when someone willfully abuses us – verbally, physically, financially, emotionally – that feels altogether different. That pushes our pain levels off the scale and can feel worse than the most serious physical injuries or diseases.

It wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a mistake, it wasn’t a malfunction. Someone purposely decided to wrong and damage us. There’s a personal choice, a human will, behind the pain.

That’s searing agony.

Was that not the worst part of Christ’s sufferings? Not so much the nails or the thorns, but the malice of the soldiers, the denial of Peter, the desertion of the disciples, the betrayal of Judas, and, above all, the felt abandonment by the Father.

Avoid or Attack
Our most common responses to being abused are either attack or avoid, retaliate or distance, both of which result in even greater damage to ourselves and others, including anger, bitterness, resentment, and even depression. But there is an alternative to taking vengeance or taking cover, and that’s giving forgiveness.

Full forgiveness
The fullest and best kind of forgiveness is when our attacker or abuser confesses his sin, asks for forgiveness, and we are enabled to do so from the heart, just as God for Christ’s sake did for us. This kind of reconciliation is one of the greatest joys for any Christian to experience. It is so liberating, so refreshing, so exquisite.

However, what if there is no confession, no repentance, no request for forgiveness? We’ve maybe tried to bring the offender to repentance and reconciliation, but without success. What then?

Are we doomed to carry around this burden for the rest of our lives? Do we just keep turning our back or looking for an opportunity to get our own back? Or do we just forgive anyway, regardless of whether the person wants any forgiveness?

Lesser forgiveness
The answer is not avoidance, nor attack, but neither is it unconditional forgiveness, giving full forgiveness where none is sought. There is a fourth option: maybe we can call it “lesser forgiveness.”

Lesser forgiveness has two parts. First, there is a forgiving attitude, being ready to forgive, eager to forgive, even praying for the opportunity to forgive. It’s about being forgiving without actually giving forgiveness.

Second, there is a giving of the matter over to God. It’s saying, “I’m not going to carry this around any longer. I’m not going to attack or avoid, but neither can I reconcile. So I give it over to God, I let it loose from my heart, and I say, “The judge of all the earth will do right.”

Giving up by giving over
There is a giving up of the hide-and-seek, a giving up of the search-and-destroy. There is a giving up of the matter to God. It’s a letting go and letting God.

There is no pardoning and there is no reconciliation. But neither is there condoning, excusing, minimizing, or tolerating of the offense, which is what unconditional forgiveness results in.

Both of these kinds of forgiveness, full and lesser, are patterned after God’s forgiveness and required by the prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

And although this is not the full forgiveness that we crave to give, it is better than the alternatives, and better for us too.

Bitter or better?
Although psychologists lack the theological basis for offering true forgiveness to their clients, they recognize that forgiveness helps bitter people become better people. In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky argues that whereas “preoccupation, hostility, and resentment that we harbor serve only to hurt us, both emotionally and physically” empirical research confirms that forgiving people are:

• Happier
• Healthier
• More agreeable
• More serene.
• Better able to empathize with others
• More spiritual or religious.
• More capable of reestablishing closeness in relationships

That’s seven major benefits of forgiving, to which we can add the benefit of an improved relationship with God as well (Matt. 6:12, 14-15).

Amazingly, Lyubomirsky’s first strategy for practicing forgiveness is to appreciate being forgiven! It’s a pity that it’s taken scientists a couple of thousand years to discover that what Jesus was teaching all these years ago is true.

Horizontal and Vertical Motivation
Of course, “scientific” forgiveness is only on the horizontal plane. To motivate us, Lyubomirsky asks us to recall an instance of when we did wrong to someone and were forgiven. However, if such relatively minor offenses against such relatively minor people can help us to forgive, how much more being forgiven by a holy God for offenses not just against His law but against His love? As Jesus said, He who has been forgiven much, the same loves much.

For more on this subject, read Mike Wittmer’s review of Chris Braun’s excellent book, Unpacking Forgiveness.

In one study, some participants were asked to write down five things for which they were thankful and to do so once a week for ten weeks in a row. Other groups were asked to list five problems that they had encountered in the week. The findings?

Relative to the control groups, those participants from whom expressions of gratitude were solicited tended to feel more optimistic and more satisfied with their lives. Even their health received a boost; they reported fewer physical symptoms (such as headache, acne, coughing, or nausea) and more time spent exercising (The How of Happiness, 91).

Sonja Lyubomirsky’s studies on patients with chronic illnesses have shown that “on the days that individuals strive to express their gratitude, they experience more positive emotions (that is, feelings like interest, excitement, joy, and pride) and are more likely to report helping someone, to feel connected with others, and even to catch more hours of quality sleep.”

Lyubomirsky’s team went on to discover eight reasons thankfulness is so directly related to happiness (pp. 92-95).

1. Grateful thinking promotes the savoring of positive life experiences
“By relishing and taking pleasure in some of the gifts of your life, you will be able to extract the maximum possible satisfaction and enjoyment from your current circumstances.”

2. Expressing gratitude increases confidence
“When you realize how much people have done for you or how much you have accomplished, you feel more confident and efficacious.”

3. Gratitude helps people cope with stress and trauma.
The ­ability to appreciate your life circumstances enable a person to positively reinterpret stressful or negative life experiences. Indeed, traumatic memories are less likely to surface–and are less intense when they do-in those who are regularly grateful. Expressing gratefulness during personal adversity like loss or chronic illness, as hard as that might be, can help you adjust, move on, and perhaps begin anew.

4. The expression of gratitude encourages moral behavior.
“Grateful people are more likely to help others (e.g., you become aware of kind and caring acts and feel compelled to reciprocate) and less likely to be materialistic (e.g., you appreciate what you have and become less fixated on acquiring more stuff).”

5. Gratitude can help build social bonds
It strengthens existing relationships and nurtures new ones. “Keeping a gratitude journal, for example, can produce feelings of greater connectedness with others. Several studies have shown that people who feel gratitude toward particular individuals (even when they never directly express it) experience closer and “higher-quality” relationships with them…In addition, a grateful person is a more positive person, and positive people are better liked by others and more likely to win friends.”

6. Gratitude tends to inhibit invidious comparisons with others
“If you are genuinely thankful and appreciative for what you have (e.g., family, health, home), you are less likely to pay close attention to or envy what the Joneses have.”

7. Gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions
“It may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed…It’s hard to feel guilty or resentful or infuriated when you’re feeling grateful.”

8. Gratitude helps us thwart hedonic adaptation
Although our capacity to adjust rapidly to any new circumstance or event helps us when the event is unpleasant, it’s a disadvantage when the event provides a positive boost. The practice of gratitude can counteract this adaptation and maintain fresh wonder and joy.

Or as someone else put it: “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High” (Ps. 92:1).

But what are these thoughts, words, and deeds that generate so much of the difference between various people’s happiness levels?

Surprisingly Simple
When leading positive psychologist (happy scientist?), Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, collated the results of numerous happiness studies she found certain thinking and behavior patterns that commonly characterized the happiest participants:

• They devote a great amount of time to their family and friends, nurturing and enjoying those relationships.
• They are comfortable expressing gratitude for all they have.
• They are often the first to offer helping hands to coworkers and passersby.
• They practice optimism when imagining their futures.
• They savor life’s pleasures and try to live in the present moment.
• They make physical exercise a weekly and even daily habit.
• They are deeply committed to lifelong goals and ambitions (e.g., fighting fraud, building cabinets, or teaching their children their deeply held values).
• Last but not least, the happiest people do have their share of stresses, crises, and even tragedies. They may become just as distressed and emotional in such circumstances as you or I, but their secret weapon is the poise and strength they show in coping in the face of challenge. [The How of Happiness, 23]

It’s surprisingly straightforward isn’t it? Nothing especially spectacular or particularly extraordinary. My own initial response was “Is that it?” That’s it. But when leveraged by the 40% figure, these attitudes and actions can cause a significant increase in personal happiness.

Surprisingly of Similar
The second surprise is how similar they are to Christian values and ethics. Every one of them overlaps with a key Christian virtue. But this shouldn’t really surprise us, should it? God is simply allowing these scientists to discover facts and truths that He has packed into the moral universe. They are only finding out what God already knows, knowledge that He has already shared with humanity in His Word.

But there is still a significant difference between these values and Christian values. Good though they are in and of themselves, they are all on the horizontal plane; they lack a vertical dimension. They are man-centered, not God-centered.

Although we should expect humanity to flourish even when unknowingly following God’s moral order, when the God of these values is brought into the picture, the 40% receives a massive happiness boost. When our happy God becomes the director, the motivator, the enabler, and the rewarder of our daily thoughts, words, and deeds, happiness enters another dimension and should result not just in the odd happy day, but an ongoing increase in our baseline happiness.