Shine

I read a book awhile ago that disturbed me quite a bit. It was called 'eat, pray, love'. It was a well-written and engaging story, but it was basically about a woman who went on a narcissistic quest to find pleasure; in the process leaving her husband to find herself. I thought about the book for months because in my mind, it was a very accurate portrayal of our world's concept of finding happiness. You selfishly seek it at the expense of others.
I am no Mother Teresa. At this moment I am lying on the couch typing and snacking while I could be cleaning the house or visiting a lonely friend or praying or doing something focused on someone else besides myself.
However, I am not doing any of those things; (for my own various reasons), instead I'm attempting to explain to myself and you how true happiness finds us.
A verse in Matthew says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Another verse in Psalms says “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart”.
The point is, that as we focus outside of ourselves and run after God and make him our number one passion, true happiness and joy will find us. I think part of it has to do with a subtle changing of our hearts. I was recently discussing yoga with a colleague at work. I told him that I like the yoga postures and stretches, but I wasn't really interested in getting into the religion of yoga. Well, what is that? He asked. I explained that among other things, yoga was supposed to give the practitioner inner calm, peace and happiness. True peace, I explained to him, is found through a right relationship with Jesus. Anything that claims to be able to give you true peace apart from him, is deceptive. You could do yoga for 6 hours a day or sit on a lamppost for 3 years or only eat raw foods or sleep for 12 hours a night or have a live-in massage therapist or get rid of all your teenagers, but none of that would bring you true inner peace.
Inner peace comes from being right with God, knowing that we're forgiven of the things we've done wrong, and being satisfied in him. God wants us to have true peace, which is why he tells us to seek after him.
I wish I could say that I experience true peace and happiness all the time. I simply don't. I tend to worry a lot about finances and how long our truck is going to keep running, and work, and my weight, and I'm very worried right now about the elk roast I have cooking in the oven.
I injured my tailbone riding 8 kilometers on a crappy bike seat, so it hurts to sit, and I'm taking a bit of time off running until I'm better. I don't have a lot of work so I have quite a bit of free time, and last night I walked to the nearest Starbucks and got a pumpkin spice latte and sat and read a book of italian recipes that I'll never make, and a medical journal of surgical procedures I'll never perform. I sat on one side of my hip and then the other, and looked out the window at the full moon and felt content. On my way home Robin came to meet me and he was excited because we have a fridge full of elk meat. We walked back home together and then Brock came over to play video games with him and I sat at the table with headphones in listening to the soundtrack from 'Shine' and putting together my thrift-store jigsaw puzzle. I drank laxative tea just to keep things moving and ate a mandarin and stayed up til midnight only to discover I was missing two pieces.
My favorite song on the cd is Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and it is so moving that I wanted to jump up and down and shout 'Hallelujah'! I listened to it on repeat for an hour and felt chills down my spine.
Simple beautiful strains of happiness have been pursuing me; in a delicious soft-boiled egg this morning, in a good book, in laughing so hard with Robin I almost cried, in a night-time walk in the brisk fall air; in watching the sun rise while talking to God about how much I love him. I am not grasping after them. They are finding me as I am seeking the kingdom of God.