Are you HAPPY?

This is the question that our government intends to ask us in the future. Prime Minister David Cameron announced yesterday that the nation will no longer measure it’s performance solely on GDP but rather in the future they want also to measure our level of ‘well being’. It seems that our Prime Minister has come to realise that increased wealth and increased happiness are not necessarily related. To be fair to the man I at least applaud him for coming to this realisation although I wonder how they hope to accurately measure it. I suppose one measure will be his majority or otherwise after the next general election.

For years the people of our nation have been labouring under the misapprehension that increased wealth means increased happiness. This has manifested itself in rampant materialism, an insatiable desire to have things. The poorest in society just think if only they could get a few pound, a nicer house, a better car or a longer holiday them they would be happy. They do not realise that those who have a nicer house, a better car and a longer holiday are just as miserable as they are.

This rampant materialism is in part responsible for the current global economic woes that our world is facing. If you listen to the media you would think it was all the fault of the banks and their irresponsible lending, however, that is only one side of the coin. What about people’s irresponsible borrowing? In a frantic desire to have more and more people spent money that they did not have, to buy things that they did not need, to impress people they did not even like. Before we go on a rant about how it is all the fault of the bankers we all need to examine the part that we played in fuelling materialism.

By way of contrast the Word of God shows us the path to true happiness. The Apostle Paul when writing to Timothy said that ‘godliness with contentment is great gain’. What a lesson that is for a world drunk on materialism. Live your life the way God wants you to and you will be content. He also said in to Timothy ‘and having food and raiment let us be therewith content.’

Many people look on the Christian life as a life of restrictions, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. However, we need to remember that God made us and knows what is best for us. A life lived for him is an abundant life, was it not Jesus who said.

‘I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.’ John 10 v10

It is difficult to explain this verse to someone who has not experienced new life in Christ but I have proved its truth in my own experience. There is a better life than the pursuit of this world’s goods and pleasures, it is a life surrendered to the will of God. Unconverted people need to come to Christ as their Saviour to gain this life and even many Christians need to remind themselves of the importance of living in God’s will for sadly many of God’s people have become caught up in the rat race of this world.

So back to the question, are you happy? Are you?

‘Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.’ Psalm 144 v15