Embracing An Unhappy Christian Life

It's blaring everywhere like a big blinking Los Angelos billboard...

"Do whatever makes you happy!"

"Find what feels good"

"If it feels good, do it!"

Unfortunately, doing the right thing is not always what "feels good". In fact, more often, doing the right thing is what feels hard and scary and self-emptying. Doing the right thing is often unhappy, particucarly in the short term. Sometimes, well, almost every time, doing the right thing most often means thinking not about how I feel, but instead, about the well-being and best interest of others. Ironically, when we put others (Especially our spouse and our impressionable vulnerable children) first we can often see through an unskewed lense that we are actually making life better not just for those we love, but for us as well, when we choose to live selflessly instead of selfishly.

This relates to so SO many aspects of Christian living. But for now, lets focus in on one main point.

Marriage.

So, before we dive in, please ask for clarity on any points you wish. Know that I do not believe anyone should remain bound in abusive situations. Seek God first on His heart for your specific situation, then seek Godly counsel next.

Believe me when I say my own marriage has seen seasons of Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. We have seen many seasons of broken and many of fulfillment, seasons of richer (well, lets be honest, we really haven't seen many of those yet HA ha) and poor, seasons of appreciation and of defeat, seasons of love and cherish and ones of dishonor, seasons of sickness and seasons of health. Vows are no longer looked at as sacred. They are trivial. They are taken lightly, even in jest. Those we hold dear no longer hold us to our vows, instead they come alongside us and hold us to the standard of HAPPINESS.

I almost think, instead of the husband and wife needing to take vows at wedding ceremonies we need to start holding vows for our attendees. These sessions could be similar to the kind of weight a court of law would somberly bring to the sole witness on the day of their best friend's trial. The kind of weight that comes with that feeling of knowing you need to be willing and ready to SPEAK THE TRUTH no matter what.

No matter if it hurts your friend.

No matter if it will be hard.

No matter if they "like" it or you afterward or not.

But, along with the weight of our family and friends needing to SPEAK truth, is the weight of our hearts needing to be surrendered and submitted to RECIEVING that truth no matter if it hurts, is hard or if we like it or not. When the hard times in marriage come, we will NEED those truth bringers in our lives. The ones who are selflessly willing to risk their "friendship" with us and possibly wound us, our pride or our disrupt our path, in order to hopefully help redirect and guide us onto God's path for us.

Maybe a key component of marriage then, is the heart of reconciliation.

We will make mistakes, big and small, and we need one another to be able and desiring and embodying a heart of reconcilation that says, "Always and forever, no matter what"!

There will be many unhappy moments in a marriage, because there are also many unhappy moments in life. And, because we are all flawed human beings. But, if we choose to embrace Gods truth and God's character and choose to grow and develop it within our own hearts and seek to spur it and pray it on into our spouses life as well, we will see our love grow into something that truly truly makes us not only HAPPY, but HOLY as well! As our love and dedication to God, His Word and honoring the holy vows we took grows, so too will our love and dedication to our spouse and honoring our vows to God, them and before "these witnesses".

As Rick Warren says, "Marriage is NOT about our happiness, but about our HOLINESS!"

So, in conclusion, today, don't choose for yourself what makes you happy. It's temporary. It's fleeting. It won't be worth it. You WILL be sacrifcing something to gain something lesser. SPEAK TRUTH and encourage your own heart and your friends hearts to be seeking HOLINESS over happiness every single time! Embrace the short seasons of unhappy for the longterm gain of a choice well made. Embrace the "over the long haul", hard, right choices and do all it takes to work toward remaining faithful or reconciling to being faithful to your holy vows! Don't encourage your friends to do what makes them happy! Be willing to embrace an unhappy Christian life in the short term, for what treasures you can build, develop and mature in choosing to be true to your vows!

It's SO worth it!