Do you want to be happy? Of course you do. After all, who
doesn’t want to be happy?
Now, let me ask you a serious question: Are you happy? I’m
not asking whether you’re happy every once a while; I’m asking whether your
life is characterized by happiness. Are you truly happy or have you tricked
yourself into believing you’re happy when deep inside, you long for something more? During the past couple years, I have uncovered what I believe
to be the biggest hindrance to your and my happiness: settling for less when we
could have more. Let me explain.
Dietsch’s Ice Cream
When I was old enough to start walking on my own, my parents
began walking me down the street to our local Dairy Queen where they’d buy me a
treasured ice cream sandwich. This was definitely the highlight of my week. The
taste of DQ soft-serve ice cream wedged between two chocolate wafers was to die
for. I savored every bite. As a kid, I thought nothing could top my weekly
treat of a DQ ice cream sandwich.
Five years ago, I moved to Findlay, Ohio, home of Dietsch
Brothers fine chocolates and ice cream. One day at work, my boss treated us to
some ice cream from Dietsch Brothers. As I was surveying their broad selection
of ice cream options, I noticed that they made an ice cream sandwich which
looked exactly like the ice cream sandwiches I had eaten at DQ as a kid.
Remembering the glorious taste of those ice cream sandwiches, I selected a
Dietsch’s ice cream sandwich. I opened the package and scanned the sandwich,
comprised of two chocolate wafers with a slab of vanilla ice cream wedged in
between, for the best entry point. After picking a spot, I took a large bite
into my ice cream sandwich. I couldn’t believe my taste buds! This was
absolutely the best tasting ice cream sandwich I had ever eaten. I’m convinced
that if there are ice cream sandwiches in heaven, they’re going to be from
Dietsch’s. I was so impressed with my ice cream sandwich that I went back for
another one and another one and another one. I couldn’t get enough of them!
A week later, I was traveling for work and happened to be
driving by a Dairy Queen. Remembering the taste of heaven I had experienced a
week earlier while eating Dietsch’s ice cream sandwiches, I pulled in to the DQ
and bought myself an ice cream sandwich, expecting similar results. Eager to
experience the taste of absolute amazingness again, I quickly opened the
package and took my first bite. Similar to my experience a week earlier, I couldn’t
believe my taste buds, but for a completely different reason. This ice cream
sandwich didn’t taste anything like the ice cream sandwich I had gotten from
Dietsch’s the prior week. It didn’t even taste good. I was so disappointed with
my DQ ice cream sandwich that I haven’t been back to DQ for an ice cream
sandwich since.
When I Experienced More, I Became Disenchanted with Less
What happened? For years, I savored the taste of DQ ice
cream sandwiches, but once I experienced the taste of a Dietsch’s ice cream
sandwich, I became completely disenchanted with DQ ice cream sandwiches. Was it
because Dairy Queen changed their recipe? Not at all. It was because I had experienced
the taste of an ice cream sandwich which was so much better that it made the DQ
ice cream sandwich taste disgusting.[1]
All those years I had settled for DQ ice cream sandwiches which were disgusting
compared to the far-superior Dietsch’s ice cream sandwiches.
We do this same thing every single day. We become so
desperate to be happy that we’re willing to grab any happiness we can find,
even if it’s only a small ounce of temporary happiness. Instead of holding out
for Dietsch’s ice cream sandwiches, we settle for DQ ice cream sandwiches.
Instead of experiencing an intimate relationship with a loving spouse, we
settle for one-night stands. Instead of pursuing happiness in the creator of
the universe, we settle for the temporary, ever-disappointing happiness we find
in his creation. As C. S. Lewis once wrote:
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.[2]
Like C. S. Lewis, I believe the biggest hindrance to your and
my happiness is that our desires to be happy are not too strong, but too weak.
We’ve experienced painful disappointment after painful disappointment in our
lives, and as a coping mechanism we’ve successfully suppressed our desire for
happiness in order to lessen the pain. We’ve reasoned with ourselves that if we
can completely kill every desire we have to experience happiness, then when we don’t
experience it, we won’t feel pain, and when we do experience it, it’ll seem
like a special treat. The only thing this logic is doing is robbing us of the
joy we can experience by allowing our desires for happiness to be so strong
that we’re unwilling to settle for anything less than a full tank of happiness.
What Can Quench My Hunger for Happiness
When I first came to this discovery, I began trying to
figure out how to increase my desire for happiness. I went searching for it. I prayed
for it. I even reasoned that it was okay to glut myself on things which brought
me temporary happiness such as Dietsch’s ice cream sandwiches in order to try
to maximize my happiness. But I was really doing nothing more than making the
same mistake which had originally gotten me to the point where I had suppressed
the desire for happiness: I was settling for temporary happiness in things
which can’t really quench my long-term hunger for happiness. Had I continued on
that path, I would’ve done nothing more than repeated the same cycle all over
again of trying to find long-term happiness in things which can only provide
temporary happiness.
What can quench my hunger for long-term happiness? In the
Bible, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not
hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”[3] Does
Jesus really possess the ability to quench our hunger for happiness? I can tell
you from my own personal experience that he continues to quench more and more
my hunger for happiness day after day. But if you’re still skeptical, consider
this question: If the creator of the universe is powerful enough to give life
to everything in the universe, why wouldn’t the creator of the universe also be
able to quench our desire for happiness, a desire which he built into us?
–
Maybe you’re feeling pretty down right now and aren’t experiencing
happiness at all. Maybe you’re feeling like you’ve just been coasting for years,
hoping that there’s more, but not quite knowing where to find it. Then again,
maybe for the most part you’re experiencing happiness, but still have a deep
yearning for something more. If any of those are you, I would encourage you to ask
God to allow you to experience the type of happiness he can offer, a type of
happiness that won’t come through the created things in this world, but through
him. As Jesus once said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will
never be thirsty again.”[4]
[1] I
don’t want you to get the impression that I think Dairy Queen ice cream
sandwiches are disgusting. They are not disgusting. A Dietsch’s ice cream
sandwich’s taste is so superior to that of a DQ ice cream sandwich that on a comparative
basis, it’s disgusting.
[2] C.
S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other
Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 26.
[3]
John 6:35.
[4]
John 4:14.
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