Holiness = Happiness

A few anonymous lines crossed my desk recently:

I had a drug problem when I was a young person.

I was drug to school on Sunday morning. I was drug to church on Sunday night. I was drug to church on Wednesday night. I was drug to Sunday School. I was drug to Vacation Bible School. I was drug to Confirmation Class. I was drug to youth group. I was drug to pray with my family.

I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, or did not speak with respect.

Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in nearly everything I think, say, and do. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, and heroin.

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If more children had this drug problem, America would be a better place.

I don't know anybody who gets into trouble by being holy. I don't know anybody who gets into trouble in worship, prayer, Bible study, fasting, sacrament, silence, stewardship, and fellowship with authentic Christians.

Holiness is being so increasingly filled with Jesus that there's less and less and less space for the kind of stuff that breeds bad behavior. It's like the fellow who approached a mystical hot dog vendor and said, "I'll take one of everything." After giving a twenty dollar bill to the vendor, he asked, "Where's my change?" And the mystic answered, "All change must come from within."

You may have heard of the man in search of a Christian pet. Finally, he bought a parrot because the pet store owner said the bird had never uttered a foul word. But after forgetting to feed the parrot before going to work one day, it cursed a blue streak when the man returned. So the man put the bird in the freezer for a minute and then said, "If you ever swear like that again, I'm going to put you back in the freezer for five minutes." "O.K., O.K.," the shivering parrot said, "but I have one question. What did that turkey in there say?"

I'm reminded of the woman who said she felt like saying "Amen" and "Praise the Lord" during worship every now and then; but she was concerned about what people would think of her. I said, "That's your problem."

We can never be holy and we can never be happy as long as we're more concerned about what people think of us than what honors God.

Again, it's all about choosing sides. Holiness is all about placing God first in our lives. Happiness is the payoff.

Augustine put it this way: "You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised . . . You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You" (The Confessions, 397-400).

If we're searching for happiness in this life, we don't really need to stock up on all of those self-help books. We can save a lot of money by following the simple formula: If you want to be happy, get holy!