Climbing a hillside 1) B1 Happiness defined

Beginning a series on the Beatitudes (Matt: 5: 1-10) has pushed me into deep places!  I have preached on them before but this lockdown gives so much more time to listen to Scripture.  And, bluntly, some of these words, at first sight, do seem to make little sense.  Of course, one of the immediate problems is the word 'Blessed' itself which prefaces each sentence.

It's difficult to translate because it is a God word - it expresses something that only God can do for us. It's about his power at move in our lives.  We cannot manufacture it.  And it has a root meaning of happiness suggesting that this teaching leads to the happiest people in the world.  Actually, a few translators have taken the word Happy directly into their translations: Happy are the...happy are the....

But what a different kind of happiness!  I summarized the work of two psychologists (Shaver and Freedman) who interviewed 52,000 people about what made them happy. They found 16 qualities which varied in order according to whether you were male or female, single or married.  The top four were: friends and social life, job or primary activity, recognition and success, being in love. The least reasons for happiness included: exercise, being a parent and religion.  Because whoever could imagine that religion and spirituality could really make you happy!  Everything on that list is about feeling happy.

Jesus defines happiness completely differently.  It's about being good.  Of truly grasping how God wants  humans to live together, experiencing God's loving purpose working out for the whole of their lives so that its whole direction, everything hangs together.  It's about answering that little voice inside: 'Is this what my life was meant to be?  Is this it?  Yes. Humans created to fellowship with God, for truth, for peace of soul find they truly belong to God, together.  This completely reverses the world's expectations. It contrasts living God's way with living our way.  The opposite of blessed is self-help that seeks success without God.

Whether God is blessing you with his grace and power, or not, is the most critical issue of our lives.  All those sixteen qualities the psychologists listed still matter of course, but they belong within God's good purpose for us.