Our women’s study is going through the “Every Thought Captive” book by Kyle Idleman. This week we are reading about the pleasure fallacy where people pursue things that make them feel good, only to find themselves worse off. He’s right, in an attempt to make ourselves feel better we binge eat, binge watch, and binge spend only to find ourselves overweight, anxious, and drowning in debt.
The answers the Bible gives us is to cast our cares on Jesus. Instead of chasing the temporary dopamine hits of food, entertainment, or spending, we need to go to the source of life. Practicing daily gratitude for what we already have reframes our perspective. Five minutes of tidying up the house reminds me that buying more will not make anyone more happy, least of all the person who has to find a spot for all of our things. We need to be grateful for what we already have and look for our self-worth beyond acquiring stuff.
Another cause of our perennial unhappiness we are not living out our true potential. Earlier this year, I made a list of my goals: relational, financial and creative. Part of my internal frustration was that I had abandoned some of my expressive pursuits because I don’t make time for them. We all have obligations, but we also have that creative spark that we need to fan. I am setting aside Netflix and doomscrolling to focus on things that bring me real joy. Writing, photography, gardening are all things that nourish my spirit.
Part of our fiscal goals this year was to include more giving. The Bible says it’s more blessed to give than receive, and it really is. We have three financial planners that I work with at my job and the happiest one spends half of his time working with a charity in Africa. He is so full of joy that it spills out on his family and his coworkers. At our convention this summer, people were competing to have him sit at their table. He was the happiest man in the room. Giving to others makes our lives bigger than ourselves.
Finally, not dealing with our broken relationships is a barrier to joy, So many people just cut off those that make them uncomfortable. Obviously abusive relationships cannot be fixed the inside, but a lot of relationships are broken for lack of clear communication and empathy. We are afraid of expressing ourselves with those that we love because we are avoiding rejection. If you have to pretend to be someone else in order to be loved, then you are not being loved. If you have to change someone in order to love them, then you are not loving them, you are hurting them.
To gain empathy, we need to acknowledge the hardships of others outside of comparing them to our own. We have plenty of compassion for our own faults, but very little patience for others. We want have our own shortcomings forgiven, but keep others accountable for theirs. Unforgiveness will keep us all apart. Self-righteousness is a lonely pursuit. The Bible tells us not only to confess our sins to God, but to confess them to one another. The hardest thing in a relationship is to go first, but it is necessary to repair a broken connection.
