"How to Be Happy"
#92-37Presented on The Lutheran Hour on May 11, 2025
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: John 15:11
"What makes you happy?" I asked her. "Reading," she told me.
I had the honor of visiting Dorothy about once a month for four years before she died. I was her pastor, the pastor of the church where she was a member. She was a widow the whole time that I knew her. Her husband had died and she had moved into an assisted-living facility. After I had gotten to know her a bit, she opened up about how much she loved to read. Dorothy grew up in rural Missouri in the 1930s, so there weren't a lot reading materials on hand. But she said, "I read everything I could get my hands on: books, magazines, church bulletins, newsletters." (Now, I didn't think anybody read church newsletters, but Dorothy would let me know what she thought about ours.) Some people just skimmed or perused, but Dorothy read every word. "I used to read everything from cover to cover," she told me. Ever since she was a little girl, Dorothy could lose herself in reading. And after she had lost so much—her husband, her home, her mobility, reading was something that still made her happy.
What makes you happy? Two thousand three hundred years ago, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle concluded that, more than anything else, people want to be happy. Happiness is what makes life worth living, or so it seems. It's even codified in the stated goal of our U.S. government—our government exists to protect its citizens' God-given rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
For many, happiness is the ultimate goal. Every other goal serves this one. Why else do people pursue power or promotion or popularity? Because, they say, "It'll make me happy, won't it?" But are you sure? Aren't the waiting rooms of countless psychiatrists filled with wealthy and successful people who, half-way through life, suddenly realized that luxury homes and exotic vacations and six-figure incomes are not making them happy. Happiness is elusive. It's not easy to attain, and even harder to maintain. So, how do we do it? How do we be happy, and stay happy?
As I said earlier, I'm a pastor. And I'm speaking to you as a pastor, as a follower of Jesus Christ. And Jesus does have something to say in response to this question about how to be happy. To His followers, Jesus promises not just happiness, but joy. Joy—that's happiness that lasts, even when circumstances change. Shortly before He was crucified, Jesus told His disciples, He said to them, "I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15:11). We'll come back to that promise from Jesus in a moment, but first, let's talk about some other answers to that question about how to be happy?
Some people believe that circumstances, right circumstances, will make them happy—that if they can get the things they want and the people they want in the places they want, then they'll be happy. The idea is that happiness can be achieved by asserting yourself over your circumstances. The entire advertising industry is built on this principle: get this gadget, pay for this service, buy a ticket to this place because it'll make you happy.
But will it? Think about your own experience. When you assert yourself to get something you want, it might make you happy for a moment, but it's just that, a moment. The feeling goes as quickly as it comes. Then you're back to where you were before: boredom, anxiety, resentment, emptiness—the absence of happiness. Why does it work like that? It's partly because, as soon as you achieve a goal, new desires come, expectations escalate. When our kids were little, we used to read them a book called If You Give a Moose a Muffin, by Laura Numeroff. Laura says, "If you give a moose a muffin, he'll want some jam to go with it." And then another muffin. That's the problem with hoping for happiness in external circumstances. Circumstances change and expectations escalate. We always want more.
And this is a problem for all people, Christians included. Because sometimes the Christian faith is presented in just those terms—that Christianity offers better circumstances. And not just the prosperity preachers say this—any preacher who points people to better circumstances in this life or in the next. In heaven, we're told, it'll be the best of circumstances—streets of gold, mansions for everyone, no more tears, happy things everywhere. And Jesus is the way you'll get it. He's the ticket. But, when you read the Bible, that's not exactly how Jesus talks about the joy He offers. It's not just changed circumstances, but right relationships. Jesus isn't just the way to a happy and full life. He is the life. Just knowing Him, that's the Source of all joy, no matter what the circumstance.
You don't have to be religious to see that there's more to happiness than external circumstances. Take, for example, the teachings of the atheist psychologist, Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi (don't ask me to spell that—we'll put it in the notes on the website if you're curious). Mihaly grew up in Eastern Europe. He was just a boy during World War II, but he was attentive. He noticed people and how they reacted to their circumstances. He noticed how few of the grown-ups he knew were able to withstand the tragedy that the war had visited on them; how few of them were able to maintain even a moderately happy attitude toward life once their job and their home and their security were destroyed by the war.
So, Mihaly decided to devote his life to understanding this question of how to be happy regardless of circumstances.i Mihaly interviewed thousands of people—artists, musicians, athletes, and other creative types, and he discovered the idea of "flow." Flow was the term he used to describe "optimal experience"—happiness. Flow is when someone is in the zone, like someone opened the reservoir and life just flows, effortlessly. So, he argued that true happiness comes, not from external surroundings, but from that internal state of flow. People who were caught up in this flow state described it like this: They said, "You're focused—you're completely involved in what you're doing. You feel a sense of ecstasy, like being outside yourself. You feel clarity—you know what to do and how to do it. You feel serenity—free from worry. You feel timeless—a slice of eternity." It was like how Dorothy described reading. She was happy when she was reading, not because reading might earn her some reward in the future, like getting a good grade or a gold star. No, for Dorothy, reading itself, the activity itself, was the reward.
The psychologist I mentioned, Mihaly, he believed that flow was the essence of happiness. And he believed that people could achieve happiness, not by asserting the self over circumstances, but by controlling the self from within, whatever the circumstance. He said that happiness was something individuals had to learn to achieve on their own, not by controlling the world, but by controlling themselves. But there's no simple recipe for how to do it. It's different for everyone. Each person has to figure out what makes him or her happy. And what worked yesterday for you might not work today. So, instead of a recipe, he gives guiding principles and lots of examples of how other people practiced getting into that flow state, sometimes even in the worst of circumstances.
For example, he tells the story of a woman imprisoned in a Soviet Gulag who entertained herself for years, even in solitary confinement. She played chess against herself in her head. She did gymnastics in her cell. She memorized poems she composed. She found that flow state, even in prison. He tells another story of an American prisoner of war who, after being imprisoned for years, and having lost 80 pounds along with most of his strength and vitality, upon being released, the first thing that he asked for was to play a round of golf. And to the surprise of his friends, he played a superb game of golf, despite his emaciated condition. And they asked him "How did you do it?" He explained that every day during his imprisonment he imagined himself playing 18 holes, carefully selecting his clubs and his approach and systematically varying the course, all in his mind.ii
And so, it seems the key to happiness is to go and do likewise. Don't think that controlling your circumstances will make you happy, because (1) circumstances are usually beyond your control and (2) even when circumstances are just as you like them, the moose always wants another muffin. So, Mihaly says, happiness can only be had through self-control.
Now, from the Bible's perspective, self-control is good. It's a Christian virtue. Self-control is even named as part of the fruit that God's Spirit produces among Jesus' followers (see Galatians 5:22-23). But remember, it's a fruit. It's a result, not a cause. Fruit is the result of a healthy vine. So also with joy—that deeper form of happiness—joy is also named as part of the fruit of God's Spirit living in Christ's followers. So, if self-control is a fruit—the result alongside joy—then it can't be a cause of joy.
For the Christian, enduring happiness doesn't come from asserting the self, nor does it come from controlling the self, but rather from surrendering the self. Jesus said, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24). The modern world imagines the center of the universe, and says, put yourself there. Whether you're the self who's trying to control your circumstances or just the self who's trying to control you, conventional wisdom says put yourself in the center. But here's what I've found: when I put myself at the center of my universe, when I become my own god, I can't handle it. It might make me happy for a little while, but eventually it crushes me. Because it's too much for me. Also, when I center on myself, I find I don't like myself very much, and neither does anyone else. Or if I center myself on some other created something, even on a good person, or a healthy hobby, I find that it can't make me happy for very long. It can't hold the weight of my escalating expectations because no creature belongs at the center of the universe. That place is reserved for Jesus. Only He can hold it. So, Jesus invites us, "Surrender yourself to Me. Let Me be the center for you. I know how to make you truly happy—so let Me. You see, at the center of the universe, there's not a prize to win, but a Person—a Person to trust and to surrender to.
There are 13 letters in the New Testament of the Bible written by a man named Paul from Tarsus. If you could lose yourself for about four or five hours, if you read all Paul's letters, doing so, you'd discover what causes Paul to lose himself, what puts him in that flow state. It's knowing Jesus and making Him known. Because the more you know about Jesus, the more you know there is to be known. There is discovery and adventure and revelation around every corner. Paul says it this way in his letter to the Philippians. He says, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3.8). Paul said he would gladly lose all things—power, possessions, praise from other people—even his personal freedom. Even his mortal life couldn't compare. He says, "For me, to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:22). And Paul found that Jesus gave him joy despite his circumstances. He says, "I've learned the secret—I've learned the secret of how to be content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Christ Who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:11-13).
Paul was ready to lose it all to know Jesus better, to become like Jesus, to be crucified and raised with Jesus. Paul would trade it all to be with Jesus. And he found that Jesus would give everything back, the whole creation made new, circumstances set free from the un-surrendered self. And so Paul could say this to his fellow Christians: "all things are yours, whether ... the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's" (1 Corinthians 3:23).
Paul realized that he never really saw the world until he saw its Creator in Jesus Christ. Then the world came alive in Christ. Circumstances were redeemed in Christ. Mountains and hills burst into song for Christ. The tress clapped their hands for Christ. And Paul did, too. He found happiness in surrender to Christ.
Okay, let's review: for the Christian true happiness does not come from self-assertion. Does not come from self-control. But neither does it come from self-annihilation. Self-annihilation—that's making the self into nothing. That's not a Christian idea. Instead, it's an idea expressed in some Eastern religions, such as Buddhism or certain circles of Hinduism. See, Western cultures have tended to seek happiness in self-fulfillment. But Eastern cultures tend to seek it in self-annihilation. These faiths would have us get rid of the problem of the unhappy self by getting rid of the self altogether, snuffing it out like a candle, which would rid the world not only of unhappiness and desire and personality, but also the possibility of relationship.
The Christian way is different. The Christian faith didn't originate from the East or from the West, but from God, from Jesus the Son of God. God's Son gave Himself to give you a new self. So, how can you negate what He gives? How can you reject what He accepts? How can you despise what He died for? Jesus died and rose; He rules, and He will return one day, not because He wants to dissolve us like drops in an ocean, but because He wants to fill us with His joy, so that our joy may be full in Him. But Eastern religions do have this much right: that joy, that enduring happiness that we're all searching for, it won't come from ourselves.
When Jesus called His followers to surrender themselves, He wasn't imposing a rule on the universe. He was revealing the heart of the universe, the center of it, because He is the God of the universe at the center of it. And He is the Lamb of God who surrendered Himself to save the universe.
Christian author E. Stanley Jones explains it this way in his book, Victory Through Surrender.iii He says that self-surrender isn't just a demand Jesus places on us. Self-surrender is a gift Jesus offers us. Self-surrender is Jesus' own personal characteristic, at the heart of His personal relationship with God His Father. See, Jesus the Son, He finds His greatest joy in surrendering Himself to His Father's will (see Hebrews 12:2). And the Father's good pleasure is to surrender His Son to save us (see Romans 8:32). And the Spirit's delight—it's to surrender Himself to rescue the universe from the contortions of our un-surrendered selves (see John 16:7-15). There's a word for this—this surrender, a biblical word. It's called love: self-giving, sacrificial love. That's the source of our greatest happiness, and enduring joy, not our surrender in the first place, but God's. We surrender because God did first. He made the first move in love, because He wants His joy to be in us.
You and I and all people, we don't have to find happiness, each in our own way. We were made to lose ourselves in Jesus. It's not a recipe. It's a relationship. Everything else that temporarily puts you in that flow state points you to your need for Jesus. If you and I surrender to what's temporary, we will never be satisfied. So, God keeps re-centering us, doing whatever it takes to center us on Jesus. Paul talked about this in one of his letters, his second letter to the Christ-followers in Corinth. In a passage from 12th chapter of that letter, Paul talked about an ecstatic experience that he had, a slice of eternity, an indescribable state of flow. Paul was temporarily taken up into paradise, into heaven. And whether it was in the body or out of the body, he doesn't know. All he knows is that he wanted to stay there, on that high. And it sounds like he was tempted. He was tempted to try to take control of it, to get more of it. He was tempted to make it about himself, and his personal happiness. So, God, in love, re-centered Paul on Jesus. God gave Paul a "thorn in the flesh" it says—possibly some physical disability or illness. Some speculate that it might have been partial blindness, perhaps related to his first blinding encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Whatever it was, Paul asked God, he pleaded with God to take it away. But God told Paul—no, not yet. He had Paul endure this disappointment and discontentment. And Jesus told him why. He said, Paul, "My grace—My favor, My joy in you—is sufficient for you, because My power is made perfect in weakness." But why? Why weakness? Because only weak people surrender.
Over the course of the years that I visited with Dorothy, I noticed her condition weakening, and she was losing her vision. One day, I asked her how she was doing. And when she answered, there was sadness in her voice, but also surrender and joy. She said, "You know, pastor, for me, the hardest part about getting old is not being able to read anymore. I really enjoyed reading. I used to read every word. My eyes just don't work like they used to. But I trust God. And I'll be content with that."
Would you pray with me? Lord Jesus, Your power is made perfect in our weakness, and Your grace, Your favor, Your joy is enough for us. Send us Your Spirit to bring us to that day when all the dead will rise, when every knee will bow, and every eye will see You as You are, and our sorrow will be turned to joy. Amen.
i Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, TED Talk "Flow - 2004," accessed on March 19, 2025 at https://youtu.be/I_u-Eh3h7Mo?si=sSfBCabD9T3WlJwX
ii Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York: Harper Perennial (2008), 91.
iii E. Stanley Jones, Victory Through Surrender, Nashville: Abingdon (1971), 50.
Reflections for May 11, 2025
Title: How to Be Happy
No reflection segment this week.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"The King of Love My Shepherd Is" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
