Dear Faith Family,
"If I could only __________, life would be good."
"If only __________, I'd be living with purpose."
How would you fill in the blanks above, today? Would today's answers differ if you were asked the same question at a different moment? I'd wager what filled the void, say, while in college was different than within your career. In fact, as you consider each stage or phase or circumstance of your story, I'd imagine that your answer to "What do I need to live happy, to experience a good and purposeful life?" has been as varied and vanishing as the moment in which it was asked.
Whether something to get, or do, or change, our answers to the question have been in constant motion and so too have our efforts to secure the apparently elusive prize of a happy, "Blessed" life. If a good and purposeful life is an ever-moving target, changing as the terrain of life changes, then no wonder we find ourselves exhausted. But is it?
Is a "Blessed" life something to be captured, achieved, or even reached? Is the life we are after truly an ever-moving target, or does the perpetual motion of what we think we need to experience it create an illusion of elusiveness?
What if the way we frame the question is the real source of our anxiousness and unrest, not the apparent elusiveness of our desire? Think about it: the way we phrase the question of happiness implies what we desire is somewhere out there, just out of reach or a million miles away. And, what lies between where I am and what I seek is a host of obstacles, whether people, objects, situations, or something more internal or ethereal. Regardless, the question assumes that there is something that we must get over, get through, or simply get to get where we want to be.
Yet, as we discussed a couple of Sundays ago, Jesus' opening words in the Sermon on the Mount imply that the life we are after is the one we already have. In other words, Jesus doesn't provide us with another list of answers; Jesus reframes the question!
Instead of asking what you need to be happy, which implies we go looking for the ever-changing answers, Jesus asks: What dilutes or covers up your "Alreay Blessed-ness"? Jesus' question still presumes there are difficulties even in a flourishing life. A good and purposeful life is still something to be faced. Yet, the reframed question settles the desire. What we are after is already ours.
So, it's not about finding what we lack but cultivating or maturing in what is already ours. The change of question shifts our efforts. Instead of figuring out what to get, grab hold of, or go through, which is, as we've attested, ever-changing, we now spend our energy uncovering happiness.
What we find exposed in our digging is the shroud of our particular anxiousness and unrest (which we'll see throughout the Simply to Flourish series) and the depths and wonder of our Father's providential affection.
So today, with Jesus' reframed question in mind, spend a few moments meditating on a favorite of our faith family: Psalm 139. And as you do, may your life, inside and out, settle in the gracious surety of your "Blessedness."
Love you, faith family!