This week in High Life we continued our series called “Happy.” Our lesson this week taught that happiness is a choice. It’s all about our choices. We can choose the world’s way – gaining power, seeking pleasure, earning praise; or we can choose God’s way. Jesus tells us that God’s way can be summed up in two simple commands: Love God, love others. Simple to say, simple to write, but so hard to really actually live out. To investigate how to better live out this commission, we looked at two more of the Beatitudes’ phrases. Jesus tells us “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” And “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” God’s path for happiness includes a hunger and a thirst for him, and a heart filled with mercy, a heart that breaks for the things that break God’s heart.
Everyday we have the choice to love God, to hunger and thirst for him, or to love ourselves and go after whatever makes us “happy.” Everyday we have the choice to love others, to be “the merciful” or to focus only on our own little world. We can ignore God and the things that break his heart and try to find happiness in the world’s way, but that won’t truly bring us happiness. Everyday, every choice, will it be me? or will it be God and others?
Love God, love others. Easy to say, but hard to live out.
Together we considered questions like:
- What are some ways that you think people in the US seek happiness? What kinds of things do people want to do or have because they think it will make them happy?
- Why do you think this is easy to say but hard to live out? What makes it hard? What gets in the way of our charge to love God and love others?
- What do you think these two statements mean? What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? How does being merciful lead to happiness?
- So, how do you become right with God? Is it by going to church, reading your Bible, giving a tithe, helping an old lady cross the street, avoid cheating on a test? How do you become right with God?
- Why do you think Jesus uses the analogy of hunger and thirst?
- What does merciful mean?
- What breaks the heart of God?
- What’s a way that you can take action?
These lessons on happiness have been hard hitting. They are really pointing out some places that many American adults and teens are going painfully wrong. We call ourselves Christians, but choice by choice, we honor ourselves, rather than God. We pursue our own pleasure rather than giving our lives to show mercy towards those caught in heartbreaking situations. We’re selfish. We’re after happiness by the world’s standards rather than by God’s. It’s very challenging to me personally as I work through these lessons. I hope that our teens are able to choose Christ and to choose mercy as they take the path towards true happiness.
Blessings,
Catherine, Shane, and Chris