Miserableness is Godliness

Chapter 1 is entitled, “Our Compelling quest for Happiness,” and the thesis of it is summed up in one of the section titles: WHAT IF WE WANT TO BE HAPPY NOT BECAUSE WE’RE SINNERS BUT BECAUSE WE’RE HUMANS? This chapter is addressing a common misconception– if we are happy, we must be sinning. This attitude is illustrated in this story from Today in the Word (Dec, 1989).

The story was told some years ago of a pastor who found the roads blocked one Sunday morning and was forced to skate on the river to get to church, which he did. When he arrived the elders of the church were horrified that their preacher had skated on the Lord's day. After the service they held a meeting where the pastor explained that it was either skate to church or not go at all. Finally one elder asked, "Did you enjoy it?" When the preacher answered, "No," the board decided it was all right!

Alcorn’s point is that the desire for happiness is not sinful in itself. In fact, that desire is a God given desire that can only be satisfied in God himself. “In other words, the Fall didn’t generate the human longing for happiness—it derailed and misdirected it.” What is sinful is not that we desire happiness but rather that we seek to fulfill that desire in things that will never ultimately satisfy. God put it this way in Jeremiah 2:12-13, “Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD,   for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Alcorn supports his premise (that seeking happiness is God given) with quotes from divines throughout history:

In the fourth century AD, Augustine said, “Every man, whatsoever his condition, desires to be happy… For who wishes anything for any other reason than that he may become happy?... “There is no man who does not desire this, and each one desires it with such earnestness that he prefers it to all other things; whoever, in fact, desires other things, desires them for this end alone.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) wrote, “All men seek happiness. This is without exception.”

Thomas Manton (1620–1677), said, “It is as natural for the reasonable creature to desire to be happy, as it is for the fire to burn.”

Richard Sibbes (1577–1635) said, “Happiness being by all men desirable, the desire of it is naturally engrafted in every man; and is the center of all the searchings of his heart and turnings of his life.”

Robert Crofts (1639) wrote, “All men naturally desire happiness. All their plots, purposes, and endeavors aim at this end only.”

Thomas Boston (1676–1732) said, “Consider what man is. He is a creature that desires happiness, and cannot but desire it. The desire of happiness is woven into his nature, and cannot be eradicated. It is as natural for him to desire it as it is to breathe.”

J. C. Ryle (1816–1900) wrote, “Happiness is what all mankind want to obtain—the desire for it is deeply planted in the human heart.”

A. W. Tozer (1897–1963) said, “Man is bored, because he is too big to be happy with that which sin is giving him.”

So Alcorn begins by attacking a common barrier to happiness – thinking that it is sinful to seek happiness or that it is more godly to be unhappy than happy.

Question: Where do you think we have gotten the idea that it is godly to be miserable?