Hedonism and Wisdom From A Friend

Delight your­self in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalms 37:4

Chris­t­ian Hedo­nism is some­thing I’ve reflected on and have come to see the immense truth of it. To say that “we value most what we delight in most” is a pro­found state­ment in how we should view our rela­tion­ship with the Cre­ator of the heav­ens and earth.

I asked my friend, Lisa Loen, about her thoughts on hap­pi­ness, and she gave me a fan­tas­tic response. I’m so encour­aged to meet and get to know Chris­tians who are zeal­ously seek­ing God, and Lisa con­tin­ues that very encouragement.

“So, what is hap­pi­ness.. I have in the past given some thought to this. I’d like to make a dis­tic­tion between hap­pi­ness and joy, as the effects are pretty dif­fer­ent (at least in my mind). Hap­pi­ness is a height­ened mood after expe­ri­enc­ing favor­able cir­cum­stances. It lasts only as long as the new­ness of your pleas­ant sit­u­a­tion does. Joy, how­ever, is deeper. God gives joy. I know I have joy when I can see God’s hand in my life. I know I am truly ‘liv­ing’ when I am in God’s will. When I am out­side of it, there is frus­tra­tion, edgi­ness, and it is harder to obtain hap­pi­ness. I could be going through dif­fi­cult times, be unhappy, yet still have joy. There is always joy in know­ing that you’re being chal­lenged and that God is going to work every­thing to His glory.“
Lisa Loen

Solid!