The lesson is this:
God doesn't want me to be happy.
Well, to clarify, God's primary purpose for my life is not my happiness.
Like many things in Christianity, this message runs counter-cultural to the 'me-focused' world of today. Most of our contemporaries would say if something isn't making you happy - a job, a relationship, a marriage etc - leave it and find something that does.
Recently I am finding myself having to make a very difficult personal decision. I have two options.
The first is pursuing something which I feel might make me happy, and we're talking a long-term happiness thing - not the fleeting 'wow I've just eaten half a block of chocolate' happiness.
Unfortunately, it still concerns what is (in my head at least) a theological grey area in terms of morality. Certainly, I feel I can't pursue this with a clear conscience before God.
The second option is the safer option - God will have no objection, but I'll be saying goodbye to that particular chance for happiness. Not only that, but there will be a number of long-term negative emotions which will accompany the decision.
I know which decision I would like to make (duh!) but I am reminded that God's chief concern isn't for our Happiness, but for our Holiness.
I believe He grieves our pain with us, certainly, but what He seeks most is for us to conform to the image of Christ and his righteousness. So, I guess that means that the 'But this will make you happy' argument isn't enough to justify a decision you can't make on a clear conscience.
Besides, God does promises that the road that leads to Life is narrow, and the gate is small. Perhaps this suggests that the right decisions will be the harder ones?
Or, to put it another way, as one of my best friends articulated in an email to me,
...if we’re being refined like gold, then it’s got to be hot.I still have a lot of thinking to do, but I thought this was a milestone worth sharing.
3 comments:
Hello fellow pharmacist.
I am a Korean New Zealander who moved to Bairnsdale, Victoria, to work as a pharmacist.
I was raised as a Roman Catholic by my Korean parents. I thought I did everything correctly by reading the Bible and understanding the meaning of God. I was always told that homosexuality was an act of sin. However at the age of 15, I could no longer lie about my sexuality and I came out to my brother. Unfortunately, telling my brother was the worst mistake of my life as that led to emotional blackmail.
After getting out of my house at 16 to go to University, I vowed to never believe in God ever again. I saturated my brain with science and found every aspect of telling myself that I did not need God. I lived a healthy and positive life. After graduating from University 2010, I started my intern pharmacist year in New Zealand. I was in a relationship with one of the most loveliest/smartest guy on earth. After my parents found out my relationship, they were infuriated and forbade me to see him. However, I ignored my parent's order and kept on seeing him.
After registering as a pharmacist, I wanted to leave the house so I decided to apply for a job in Australia which, resulted in me having a long distance relationship. After 3 months, the distance (from New Zealand and Australia) drove us apart and we broke it off. What was ironic was that, I wanted to end it. Although I am single (lonely) again, I am kinda glad because I wanted the freedom to follow my dreams and find my bliss in life.
My relationship with my family are much stronger now because I have come to the conclusion that it is about time that I need to focus on me and not on love and relationships. Although they have accepted me for who I am, they do get the sense of xenophobic feel to my sexuality.
My love for in God and religion is a bit of a opaque but I am slowly breaking down the wall that I have consolidated in the past 7 years.
Sorry for a ginormous essay, but your blog seemed like the most appropriate place for me to relate to what I have been through in my life till now. I would like to say my encounter to your blog is serendipitous. I want to end my muddily 2012 and start a brand new 2013!
Thank you very much for enlightening my life.
Hey Joon,
I am so glad you stumbled onto my blog, and found it helpful. Thanks for sharing such a big and personal part of your life here. I'd be very keen to chat to you further and find out some more of your story, if you're amiable to that.
I would love to chat to you about where you're at now with your sexuality, and your relationship with God, and how each influences the other in your life.
Feel free to add me on Facebook (there's only three Scott Gamblings on FB). I'm also living in Sydney so if you're ever up from Bairnsdale it would be a pleasure to have coffee with you.
Grace and peace.
It's a tough one to make suggestions for without knowing details!
I think God does want us to be happy. But of course not at the cost of holiness and righteousness.
I once read a book by Ken Davis where he recounted a conversation he had with a girl who was about 17 or 18. She was saying she didn't know what she wanted to do now that she'd finished school. She wanted to obey God but didn't know what he wanted her to do. She said she *enjoyed* working with children but didn't know if that was God's will for her. Ken pointed out that God wants her to be happy and she can serve God by using her talents in working with children. He said God wouldn't have given her that passion for working with children if he didn't want her to do that. Obviously that attitude can't extend to all things - but on matters that are basically amoral and that the bible doesn't speak on (like whether you should work with children or not) - choosing what makes us happy, I think, is fine. Similarly, in the absence of any other guidance, I don't think we should choose the hard/unenjoyable things just because we feel serving God always has to make martyrs of us. You probably realise that already and I probably haven't really helped :-\
I guess that's the question. Would pursuing the thing that would make you happy cost your holiness and righteousness? I guess saying you don't think you can pursue it with a clear conscience before God is a 'yes' or at least a 'maybe'.
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