Happiness, Third Choice: Identification

I do not usually pick up self-help books, but the title was so intriguing (and I was so unhappy) that I decided to take a chance on it. Twenty years later, I am still living into the lessons I learned from this unusual research, written by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks. The book itself does not come from a Christian perspective, so as I read it, I modified their counsel somewhat to include God.

There are nine choices Foster and Hicks discovered that consistently happy people make. Each choice leads to the next in a circular helix very like the chambers of a conch. If intention is the foundational choice, and accountability keeps us grounded in our intention, then the third choice of identification enables us to own who we are as happy people.

Identification in Christ

Who I identify as is a big deal in our culture today. Who am I, inside? When I look at the mirror, who looks back at me? Believers understand this question deeply, it is everywhere in our scriptures.

Lavished in Love

I am someone God has loved since before I existed, and who has given me every possible heavenly blessing, who redeemed me from corruption and death, adopted me as a co-heir with Jesus, and has given me the Holy Spirit as a deposit on my eternal inheritance (Ephesians 1:3–14).

Living in Love

Because I have Jesus’s own Spirit living in me, enlivening me, I have Jesus’s mind, I have Jesus’s character, and I am mysteriously made one with Jesus in a way that makes me a part of his physical body, here in real time, in my real life (1 Corinthians 2:6–16, Galatians 5:22–25, 1 Corinthians 12:12–31).

Loving With Joy

Though I feel the full spectrum of my emotions, and give each one their honor when they wash through me, the underlying thrum of my life, as a believer, is joy. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,” Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:3 NRSVUE, italics added).

John also wrote of joy, knowing that sharing our lives in Christ together makes our joy complete. John opened his first letter by saying, “What we have seen and heard we also declare to you so that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” That fellowship was a source of great joy, so much so, John continued, that “we are writing these things so that our [and your] joy may be complete” (1 John 1:3–4 NRSVUE, italics and brackets added).

As Christians, then, joy in life is not only our gift from God through the Spirit, it becomes a part of our character and outlook.

Foster and Hicks talk about how to access that joy.

Identification as a Happy Person

According to the authors, “Identification is the ongoing process of looking within myself to identify what makes me happy” (Happy, 10). As we go through the day, we make choices or move in the direction that will truly make us happiest. To do this, we have to be self-aware, really know ourselves well enough to know what those choices would be. We also have to have some measure of courage, because sometimes those choices will mean not conforming to what someone else wants us to do.

In one of the stories the authors relate from the people they interviewed, the question arose, “What makes me really, authentically, honestly, deeply, personally happy” (Happy, 71)? That is, of course, the million dollar question. For those whose lives are joined with God’s, it becomes an even deeper question.

What Makes Me Happy? 

Reading through the Psalms, the word “desire” comes up twenty-three times. Sometimes it is in the context of evil desires, those things that serve the purposes of godlessness.

For the wicked boast of the desires of their heart; those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord, for example,

Psalm 10:3 NRSVUE

And sometimes, on the opposite side of the scale, the word “desire” shows in what the Lord desires to do.

The Lord Longs to Bless

Therefore the Lord longs (and also waits) to be gracious to you;
    therefore the Lord will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
    blessed are all those who wait (and also long) for the Lord.

Isaiah 30:18 NRSVUE (modifications added)

It is a beautiful example of ancient Hebrew poetry, bringing the couplet full circle with the word châkâh (חָכָה ), which can mean to long or to wait. There is a sense of patient longing from the Lord, waiting for you and me to be ready for God’s gracious gifts, and there is our own sense of patient waiting as we long for God, and long for God’s blessing.

Every story has complexities. Often enough, the Lord waits until circumstances have matured, and all is in readiness. But I wonder if sometimes God is waiting for us to be ready to receive what the Lord has to give.

We Long to Be Blessed

The Psalms speak of God granting the desires of those whose hearts are attuned to the Lord’s. God will hear the desire of the meek and strengthen their hearts and God will grant the godly the desires of their hearts and fulfill their plans (Psalm 10:17, 20:4). Perhaps the most famous Psalm about the Lord wanting to fulfill our joy is

Trust in the Lord and do good;
    live in the land and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
    and the Lord will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in God, and the Lord will act.

Psalm 37:3–5 NRSVUE (modifications added)

The desires of our hearts are often mixed. Sometimes we want things that are not good for us, or not good for others. Sometimes we think we want that something with such a burning desire we can become obsessed with it. Apart from God, fulfilling those desires would bring perhaps a fleeting sense of happiness, yet its harmfulness would win out in the end.

But when we “delight in the Lord,” when we open our minds to the mind of Christ, our hearts to the character of Christ, and our spirits to the infilling of the Spirit of Christ, then we can explore what makes us uniquely us, and discover what makes us happy.

A Prayer Offering

The authors offer an exercise in their book that can be modified to a prayer exercise. As you sit quietly with the Lord, place a blank sheet of paper before you, set your timer for somewhere between three and five minutes, then speed write everything that comes to mind when you ask, “What makes me happy?” The idea is to write as fast as you can, so that you do not censor yourself (or the Spirit, who knows you better than you know yourself).

What surprised you in your list? Or was it hard to write your list? Did you struggle between what—deep deep down—you know makes you happy, and what others have told you is supposed to make you happy?

This can be the starting place between you and the Lord as you seek to know the desires of your heart and God’s longing to bless you.

The Steady State of Happiness

For all people, what makes us happy is energizing, it relieves stress and protects us even from physical illness. Christians know what this kind happiness is. The “joy of the Lord” and the “peace that passes all understanding” are not waves of emotion that come and go, but rather a steady state of being. To make that steady state central to my life may initially require more courage than I usually have, to say “no” to some things, and “yes” to other things. But I can tell you, from personal experience, it is worth it.

[Cover Image: Photo by Vijayalakshmi Nidugondi on Unsplash]