I began asking others if they were happy, deep-down happy, but I always got the same negative response. Pretty much universal unhappiness out there in the world.

Now I can look back on that time knowing that happiness for creatures is impossible apart from a restored relationship with the Creator. Those apart from Christ will always try to find happiness in all the worst places. It is only found in Christ, and what a relief unspeakable it was for me to find that in Him!

But even Christians can sometimes find themselves unhappy, which is antithetical to our calling in Christ. Christians can sin and get bogged down and distracted. But we know the way back and the door is always open.

Scripture has a few things to say about happiness. So let’s take a look.

1. Whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he (Prov. 16:20). If we are unhappy, it could be we are worrying  rather than trusting our good God.

2. He who has mercy on the poor, happy is he (Prov. 14.21). Try this next time you are feeling unhappy: reach out and show mercy to those less fortunate than you.

3. Happy is the man who is always reverent (Prov. 28:14). Have you been honoring, showing respect to, reverencing, fearing the Lord?

4. Happy is he who keeps the law (Prov. 29:18). Oh, ouch. Have you been cutting corners? Telling little lies? Indulging in a little gossip? Not putting things all the way right? That will eat away at your happiness for years to come. Make it right.

5. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God (Psalm 146:5). Consider who it is you have the privilege to call your Father. Hope in Him. Be happy in His help.

6. Happy are the people who are in such a state; Happy are the people whose God is the Lord! (Ps. 144:15). This psalm describes what a blessed culture looks like. When we have a Christian community, we have much to rejoice in. We know who we are. We are not confused or lost. We are God’s people, and that should make us happy.

7. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you; on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified (1 Peter 4:14). This means when you get flack from co-workers, family members, or even strangers at the grocery store for being a Christian, you should realize this is the sign of God’s blessing. This includes those rude comments about your (more than two) children. Remember in such times that the spirit of God and glory is resting on you. That should make you happy.

8. Finally, we should remember that happiness is a great benefit to us and a means of glorifying God. He is the source of all happiness, and we return thanks to Him. Happiness is joy, blessedness, and contentment, and these things should characterize our lives.

Well, how exactly do I love myself?

Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently  ‘ Love your neighbour’ does not mean ‘feel fond of him’ or ‘find him attractive’. I ought to have seen that before, because, of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do.”

The important point is not really what we think it means. The point is always what God thinks it means. And though there are, granted, some difficult passages in the Bible that theologians wrestle with, most of it is plain as daylight.

I think it was Mark Twain who said something like, “It’s not the passages in the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the passages that I do.”  He was honest about his quarrels with God’s Word.

When a text rubs our fur wrong, it is tempting to explain it away some how or other or try to get it to mean something else. “Have you looked at the original Greek? ” we say in a lofty tone. “If you did, you would see clearly that what this really means is…..” Or we establish our authority in disagreeing with the text by telling everyone that we read a book once about this very thing. Aha! Brilliant!

This is one of those age-old temptations; it’s nothing new. Pagans and atheists do it, and even genuine Christians can do it. We ought to decide to have no problem passages. If the Bible says it, then I go on the record as giving it a hearty Amen. If I don’t understand it, then I should assume that the problem is not in the passage, but in my understanding or in my heart.

No doubt we can find some troubling bits in the Bible that are hard to understand. But let’s just focus on obeying the ones that are crystal clear!

If we view unexpected events as tests from a loving Father, we know how to proceed because we all know how to take tests. We have done our homework. We can roll up our sleeves and try to ace the test.  Unless we’ve been dozing in class, not doing our homework, and spacing out during the lectures. In that case, we need to repent, and then we need to get back on task.

Life is full of trials and tests. We are told to count them all joy. If we’ve been learning our lessons, and the pop quiz comes unexpectedly (like all pop quizzes do), we are prepared. And it’s a whole lot easier to count it all joy when we meet various trials (and tests) when we are prepared.

Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2: 9 that women ought to “adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation….” and he specifically mentions the flagrant violations: “not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing…”

Then Peter has the same three things in mind when he tells the women to remember they are supposed to be pretty on the inside, not just on the outside: “Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel…” (1 Peter 3:3).

When we think of adorning ourselves modestly and with a gentle and quiet spirit, it means we have thought through more than just our clothes. We’ve considered our hairstyle and our jewelry as well. What does the world want us to do with our hair? What does the world want us to do with jewelry? These things apparently matter because we have two apostles mentioning all three things in two different passages addressed to women.

When we think world-viewishly about music and literature and marriage and children, that is good. But we must not neglect to work it into these other areas as well. What is the world trying to get us to wear? Why? What do these things mean? What does God think about them? Why does the world care? The world wants to get Christian women to wear whatever the current uniform is for hair, jewelry, and clothing. Chances are always pretty good that said uniform will not be modest (or appropriate or moderate). God wants us to wear something else.

On my way home I realized that I had said something very stupid and untrue. I know that God has promised to never leave us or forsake us; He has promised no temptation will ever be so bad that we can’t escape. But He never promised not to give us more than we could handle. In fact, He gives us more than we can handle all the time. If He didn’t, then we would not need to lean on Him for grace and strength. Paul learned how to be content because God gave him more than he could handle many times over. But Paul learned to trust God, and he learned contentment in plenty and in want. He summed it up by telling us, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” If he had never gotten more than he could handle, he would not have learned to get strength from Christ.

Twins? Quadruplets? You’ve got to be kidding. But God gives more grace. Forgive that guy? I can’t. But God gives more strength. Speak in front of a large audience? No way! But God enables. Cancer? A house fire? If we simply look to our own resources, of course we will crumple. But if we acknowledge our weakness and look to Christ, He will carry us through.

Moses felt pretty inadequate for the job. “O my Lord please send by the hand of whomever else You may send” (Exodus 4:13).  Jeremiah argued with the Lord, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth” (Jeremiah 1:6). I wonder if Mary didn’t feel a little overwhelmed at times. Think of Esther, married to King Xerxes of Persia. She must have been terrified when she approached the king to ask a favor. I am sure we could find many more characters who were given more than they could handle, and yet when they responded in faith, they were blessed. Daniel and his friends in the den of lions, Noah and his ark, Sarah and her promised son, the list could go on and on.

So join me in never saying such a stupid thing as, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” Our God is much better and greater and kinder than that!

For example, if you keep getting shellacked, then you should move out of range. This is just common sense. It is our God-given sense of self-preservation. If someone is repeatedly unkind and cruel, then you have to consider your options, and different relationships have different thresholds for moving on. If your roommate at college is a continual pain, then fulfill your obligations for the year and move on. If it’s a neighbor or a boss who is continually sinning against you, you can always move across town or look for another job. Why not?

But if it’s a family member, there is a different threshold for what is intolerable. Your family is your family. If  your parents are the offenders, and you are still living at home, you need to hunker down and pray for grace to make it to adulthood. Then you can move out and on. Meanwhile, you should do all you can to make it better. The same goes with a sibling. Extend forgiveness, do your best to improve the relationship, but if you continue to be persecuted or ignored, you can get out of range once you are grown. This is not being fatalistic, but simply acknowledging that relationships can get so tangled that the sometimes the only way out is to cut the rope.

If it is your husband who is perpetually sinning against you, then you need to get help. This can be the most difficult to endure and has the most severe consequences.  But the thing that I find (over and over) is that women with unkind husbands rarely have the courage to get help. They want sympathy, but not a real solution.

But back to friends. If a friend has betrayed you, Jesus knows how you feel. He fed Peter breakfast on the beach before Peter even asked for forgiveness. But He also addressed the sin; He didn’t ignore it. He gave Peter three opportunities to state his love, paralleling his three failures. Peter put it right. Judas also betrayed the Lord, but he did not put things right.

Sometimes your friends will wrong you (or your kids’ friends will wrong them), and this will result in a chilly distance. If you are the wronged party, you are obligated to extend forgiveness, but you are not obligated to continue to be best friends. If someone steals from you while fixing your sink, you may forgive him, but you may decide to call someone else next time the drain is plugged.

Forgiveness is one thing; friendship and trust are other things. If your friend has broken your trust, forgive him, and don’t entrust that friend in the future. This is wisdom. But beware of bitterness. Don’t mistake one for the other.

It’s worth noting that it is usually those closest to us (i.e. family members) who can bother us the most. And they are the very people with whom we should have the sweetest fellowship. There are two sins involved in this (at least). One is the sin of the offender; and the other is the sin of the one who takes offense. Taking offense and keeping it is like taking ugly pills. Ever seen the face of a long embittered woman?

This whole forgiveness thing must have seemed a little outlandish to  Peter. He wanted to know just how many times he had to forgive. So Jesus made a point of giving him a number.  Four hundred ninety times. That’s 490.

Here it is in Matthew 18: 21-22:

“Then Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’

Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to keep track of that. The point is obviously clear:  we are to have no debt ceiling when it comes to forgiveness. We are to just keep on forgiving, no matter how many times our brother sins against us. You would think that after a while, we might not let it bother us at all any more. Think how comfortable our Christian lives would be then? But that’s not natural for us. Our flesh is uncooperative.

When we forgive, not only are we obeying God, we are doing ourselves a favor. When we forgive, we are blessed; when we refuse to forgive, we cannot expect a blessing. Extending forgiveness frees us. It makes our lives sweeter. Let’s say this guy, whoever he is, is shooting for sinning against you 491 times. If you refuse forgiveness, he won’t get any better, and you will only feel worse. So, if you see my point, it’s better to forgive, and then be braced for the next round. I guess God wants us to get really good at this forgiveness thing because if we do, we’ll be more like Him. I think forgiveness is a little bit like hospitality: you throw the doors open and welcome the poor sinner back in. Lack of forgiveness shuts the door and says don’t come near.

I don’t mean that we should be totally calloused and oblivious when people sin against us. We’re not blocks of wood. I would prefer to call it a light-heartedness. Thomas Watson said it’s better to be the one sinned against than to be the one sinning. A clear conscience is a wonderful thing! Thank God for it.  Then use the other guy’s sin as a sermon to you. Ask God to give you a sharper sense of when you are sinning against someone yourself. And then be quick to seek forgiveness.

Let’s say someone has wronged you, and it’s not your imagination; it’s an objective sin. It is easy to put that grievance in a compartment somewhere in your heart and keep it there. For years and years. After all, it was a real sin and it’s easy to feel totally justified in being indignant. It could be one of your family members, or someone at work or at church; it could be the neighbor who cussed you out for parking funny, or it could be one of your own children who didn’t sin at all, but just woke up too early this morning. We can gather up grudges from all kinds of places, for real or imagined sins.

But Jesus wants us to think about this a different way. Upside down in fact. Do we want God to put our wrongs in a compartment where He can review them regularly and hold a grievance against us? Aaaackk. No! We want Him to put them as far away as the East is from the West. We want Him to bleach the crimson stain out. What does He want us to do? He wants us to imitate Him so that He can imitate us.

Jesus taught His disciples (and aren’t we His disciples?) to pray very specifically. Whenever we ask God to forgive us for our sins (which we ought to do regularly), we are to ask Him to model His forgiveness after ours. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

So, we could easily say in our prayers something like this: Lord, please forgive me for my sin of  (fill in the blank) the same way I have forgiven so-in-so. To tell you the truth, I don’t want God to model His forgiveness after mine. Mine is pretty weak and lame, and I am fully capable of carrying a grudge. But we say the Lord’s Prayer every week at church, and it is a potent reminder that I need to get full grace from God to forgive others so that I can ask Him to forgive me.

Here’s a suggestion. Who is it in your life who requires the most forgiveness from you? Then ask God to forgive you today the same way you have forgiven old so-in-so. And if you just can’t do it,  ask God to give you the resources to extend forgiveness. Clean out that cupboard of grievances and ask God to give it a thorough shine.

Then we can all pray the Lord’s prayer without being hypocrites. And it’s amazing what a heavy weight those old grievances are. There’s no need for us to continue to drag them around like a ball and chain. Christians, of all people, are the most free. We have the means, by God’s grace, to live like we are.