Shameful Happiness

Monday Devotion

“Their glory is in their shame.”

Philippians 3:19

When my book Sacred Marriage received the subtitle “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” I never intended to become known as advocating “antihappiness.” Nor did I want anyone to believe I see happiness and holiness as mutually exclusive. I don’t—and I certainly wish happiness for my children in their own marriages. But our culture has divorced happiness from its original meaning and stripped it of its original nobility until it has been perverted to mean something entirely new and alien.

You can tell a great deal about a person’s spiritual health by what makes him or her, as we now define it, happy. In fact, I recently read a very sad quote about happiness. An accomplished athlete coupled up with another celebrity following his divorce. While admitting he misses his children, he told a reporter, “I’m in a good, happy place. I’ve never been happier.”

I wonder how this athlete’s kids felt knowing their dad is now “happier than he’s ever been” since he no longer lives with them and their mother (whose quotes in the media make clear her sadness) must learn to live without him. How do you think that makes them view “happiness?”