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Life outside the Amusement Park
by
Cory Harrison
One Englishman once said of us Americans, “The
problem with you Americans in that you have to be so
confoundedly happy all the time. You have dedicated yourself
to the pursuit of happiness. You brag about it as if it is
the supreme and ultimate goal of all existence. Surely there
are more important things in life than just being happy.
I think the guy is kind of right, it is an
American thing. Right along side of life and freedom, we put
in our Declaration of Independence, the words and “the pursuit
of happiness.”
“Americans are endowed with certain
unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.”
And some people I know have been living up this
pursuit of happiness at the highest level. There life is
devoted to the pursuit of happiness. And isn’t it funny how
people go about happiness?
One Salvationist buys a few homes to be happy
while another moves into the slums to live with the poor for
the same feeling.
One woman becomes a nun and another woman
becomes a whore.
One young man tries to find happiness by body
building while another young man tries to find happiness by
turning to drugs and destroys his body.
One couple is convinced that happiness in
children and they have 8 of them while another couple is
convinced that children will get in the way of happiness and
they go childless.
In a book entitled: “Conversion of Spiritual
Journey” Malcolm Muggeridgesays this about happiness:
“Of all the different purposes set before
mankind, the most disastrous is surly the pursuit of
happiness. Slipped into the American Declaration of
Independence along with life and liberty as if it is some
unalienable right, almost slipped in at the last moment
perhaps by accident. Happiness is like a young deer, fleet
and beautiful. Hunt him and he becomes a poor frantic
animal. And after the kill, just a poor piece of stinking
flesh.”
C.S. Lewis in his book Screwtape Letters has
the arch devil, Screwtape, advising his apprentices on how
they should go about deceiving the humans. He tells them that
the way you do it is this:
“Through an ever increasing craving for an
ever diminishing pleasure.” “That” he said, “is the formula
of destruction.”
I read recently a short parable that defines
the differences between the 2 ideas of happiness that are
known to us all today. The parable was written by a girl
named Gloria and she wrote it of herself.
Many times I have felt as if I am on a huge
roller coaster that goes up and down and round and round.
Sometimes I manage to escape and get off the mad ride, but I’m
still in the amusement park.
Outside the park, the world looks exciting
but it is too risky. I’m not sure I could survive so the
amusement park remains the biggest attraction.
For everyone is being persuaded to stay
inside and get back on the coaster. Yet I still think to the
past of the people who went outside of the amusement park.
They are the ones that seem to be truly seeking after God with
all their mind, heart, soul, and body and are prepared to give
it all up. They are the ones who live uncompromising lives.
The committed.
They don’t feel the grip of money, the
pressure of groups, the punctured self discipline, the
crushing fear of the future, the horror of death, the need of
security, and the rule of self. They don’t struggle with
faith, hope, and love; faith, hope, and love pour out of
them. And through them, it seems from my view point inside
the amusement park, that those who live on the outside are
those who are really happy.
And I would like to live out there but I am
not strong enough to stand up for what I believe, partly
because I am not sure what I believe.
My discipline is worthless inconstancy,
myself wants to satisfy myself, I am not happy.
I wish I could live an uncompromising life
outside the amusement park. I wish it but yet I fear it at
the same time.
Life outside the amusement park.
With this parable in mind, I am amazed at the
example of Jesus and his pursuit of happiness and his life
outside the amusement park.
He was a hugely happy man. We can read the
record of his life and we see:
He had good relationships and friends. He was
entertained by some wealthy people, not often but sometimes.
He had the opportunity to do what he loved to do. He could
teach, he could heal, he could have some good meals with
friends and disciples. All of these doors were open to him
for his happiness.
But think about this, through the last months
of his life, all the doors of outward pleasure were slammed in
his face. His ministry has taken a huge hit. His disciples
are all but ready to desert him. The next day he will hang on
a cross and die. And even in the midst of all this, he says
this he says in John 15:11:
“I have told you this so that my joy may be
in you and that your joy may be complete.”
That intrigues me, all the support systems
gone. All the doors to outward happiness shut. And He still
says, “so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be
complete.”
Can you imagine in your minds that here is a
man about the face the most terrible death and he is talking
about his joy and his happiness?
There are only 2 explanations for that: Either
he is crazy mad or he knows something the rest of the world
does not know.
At the core of his life was the happiness by
being who God creating him to be.
For us, true happiness is in being who God
created us to be. Or maybe I could say it like this: “True
happiness is life outside the amusement park.”
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