I love Ohio...(and other off-topic pet peeves that may or may not be deep thoughts)

It took me roughly 20 years of living in Ohio for me to appreciate it. Oh, I remember seventh grade as a year set to the background music of the Relient K song, "High of 75", which was well-known in my middle school social spheres as referring to the weather in Ohio, which has been known to be crazy and a little unpredictable at times. At that point in my life, I joined in the cacophony of complaints about this state which we called home. I liked to complain about how crazy Ohio weather was and let the Relient K song become a kind of rally cry.

Needless to say, my feelings have changed over the years. It is funny how leaving a place for a substantial amount of time sometimes makes it all the more endearing to you. It was like that for me when I came to college, only a few hours north of my hometown and birthplace, but all of a sudden I realized how much I appreciated southwestern Ohio. It became beautiful to me in ways that it never was before, and I started seeing it and experiencing it in new ways.

Which leads me into my pet peeve: If you chose to apply, accept, and move to another state for your college experience, the state is part of the package deal. And I don't appreciate the bashing of my dear home state because to me, it is home. And I love Ohio. There are real, tangible, legitimate reasons that I care for this state, and I actually happen to think it is pretty swell. If ya wanna complain, don't complain while you are a) in the state you are complaining about b) around people who might care for the state you are complaining about. And please don't wear shirts that say that Ohio is the worst state ever. I feel very protective of Ohio's feelings, and they might especially be hurt if you wear that.

That being said, I think I may owe West Virginia an apology.

So, on another topic, I got to thinking about how important happiness is to us. Happiness is given quite a pedestal, both in Christian and secular spheres. And I have been thinking about the concept of happiness and specifically how it might relate to God for about two years now. When I first came to college, I was not happy. And because I held the belief that God wanted me to be happy, I felt disappointed and let down by my heavenly Father because my experiences in college were not exactly shouting happiness. I spent a lot of time grappling with this question of whether I deserve to be happy, whether that is a right that I can thus become righteously angry about when that right is violated, or not.

See, I am not entirely convinced of several things.

#1- I am not convinced that the human definition of happiness is aligned with God's. I think this is the first place we go wrong. The human definition of happiness is very temporal, is often associated with sensory pleasures or immediate gratification, and usually pends on the attainment or completion or fulfillment of something. Think about the phrases you typically use the word happy in when referring to yourself. What makes you happy? I find that my happiness is extremely situational and very self-centered.

#2- I am not entirely convinced that our happiness equates God's best for us. Essentially, I think and know that God's heart for us is indeed for good things, but it is also for the best for us. And I know that in my life, God's best is not always what makes me happy- at least in my own estimation or even initially. Some of God's best has come to me in the midst of difficult situations, or things that are so beyond my realm of understanding. And there is the famous distinction between 'joy' and 'happiness' that I continue to think of as a compelling argument for why God may not always desire our "happiness". I think God desires 1) His best for us, which being all-knowing and good and sovereign, only He has the capacity to grasp, and 2) the fullness of our relationship to Him. I know that my own happiness, most of the time, only makes me more focused on myself and why I am and why I "deserve" to be happy. Usually, my happiness is more about me and much less about God.

#3- What is more important, happiness or truth? This is an important question I have been trying to discern. There is something we like to hear, something almost cool and hip-sounding about hearing someone say in reference to someone else, "I just want them to be happy. That is all I care about." Welllllp, I want to turn that on its face. How deeply do we care about our friends and loved ones?  Do we care about them as brothers and sisters in Christ if they are, or as those whom God dearly loves and desires reconciled to Himself if they are not yet believers? Is wishing them personal happiness really the best we can do? I am not convinced it is.
First off, wishing them personal happiness is extremely subjective. Is it personal happiness according their own thoughts, desires, definitions? This is problematic in and of itself. This begs the question, is there anything that could ever be greater than personal happiness? (Keep hanging in there with me here, I know I am getting a little philosophical on you.) The wish for another to just be happy is putting happiness up at the top of the list of things we should care about for others. I have a big problem with this. I don't think that happiness is the most important thing, and at the risk of sounding like a cold-hearted and uncaring person and friend, there are frankly better and more important things I wish for all the people in my life. I wish them good things. And I know that not all things that are good for us are always easy, or always incite the often-emotion of "happiness". I wish truth for them, and God's love and light in their lives. I wish freedom and healing, things typically not always achieved through the means of happiness, but often through struggles.

There are several distinctions to be made here, however.

1) I do not wish or hope ill on anyone. Wishing for someone's ultimate good, or wanting God's best for them, may encompass hard times on them, but it is not the same as actively wanting to "curse" another. The Bible is clear about the ramifications of that action: (See Matthew 5:22: oh, snap.)

2) Wanting God's best, or wishing for good in the lives of those I love doesn't mean I don't want them to be happy. It's be awesome if happiness is wrapped up in there with God's blessings and best for their lives. I think often it is, when God gives us HIS version of happiness, which is satisfaction in Him. True, deep, meaningful satisfaction. And I think that is the best kind of happiness there truly is.

Say I have a friend of whom I say, "I just want them to be happy. I am happy that they are happy." Well, what if that friend is engaging in self-destructive behavior? What if they are cutting themselves or harming their body through drug abuse, alcohol addiction, or even a sexual addiction? If my friend defines something that is harmful or destructive to themselves or others (it could be stealing cars and joy-riding, or even something more twisted and sadistic such as kidnapping, etc.) as their own happiness, should I just be happy that they are happy? Of course not, I should think! I think we are scared. We are scared to place values on things, to say that things are destructive or harmful or that they should not make another happy. And I think that we are allowing some of the post-modern and ethical relativistic tendencies currently characterizing our culture to seep into our own beliefs and relationships.

I believe there is a point where truth eclipses relativistic and personally-defined happiness. I care too much about my friends to allow them to continue in a path of self-destructive behavior for the sake of this idea we all love to subscribe to called "happiness". How much longer will we continue to mask the truths we are called to share with each other in Christian love and out of a deep call to care for others, to care for God's people, just for the sake of this idea called happiness? And on a more real level, how many lives will continue down unhealthy paths because friends of those people throw their hands up and take a step back to allow room for one's "personal happiness"? I find this mentality troubling and dangerous, as much as the implications of lives being lived this way.

Let us learn to live a more examined life.