Happiness

It had been a rough week for Mary and Robin. Besides her husband getting sick with some intestinal virus Mary, herself, had to take an honest look at herself. In prayer, during the week her friend, Dana, had dealt with a “familiar spirit” which attached itself to Mary when her mother died. The name of the spirit was Jezebel! Mary had looked at it, admitted it, and confessed her sin to God. After reading up on it Mary recognized in herself the rebellious spirit towards authority it spoke of and saw its need for power and control at work in her. Further she saw the manipulation for control in her life which was common with this demon. She had seen it in her mother. When her mother died this spirit had attached itself to Mary.
But the curse had been broken. Mary was free. However, she could see that this spirit perhaps had been busy trying to get its own way in regards to buying the cottage. You see Jezebel served Baal who was a god of self-will and self-want. As she uncovered all these truths Mary wondered if there was any good in her. She knew better however, and trusted that God used everything that was happening to show her just who and what were at play.
One thing Mary knew was that the desire for the cottage (despite it being a selfish desire) had drawn her and Robin to God in prayer. God had answered in his own way: the money spent on Bernie seemed to be God’s signal not do go forward with the purchase of the cottage. They couldn’t afford it now.
On a beautiful Monday afternoon after this revelation Mary drove down to the cottage and sat for a few brief minutes and surrendered it over to God and cast the care of it all on God’s shoulders. Mary shared it with Robin later. On the following morning during their time of prayer Mary and Robin pressed in on God once more for further direction.
Later that day Mary listened to Charles Stanley on the radio. Mary was delighted to hear that his topic concerned “the desires of the heart”. He shared that sometimes we can manipulate things to get the desires of our heart but if they are not God’s will we will suffer disappointment, loss, and sorrow.
Mary had been through that once before while living in Toronto. She had opened a business without God’s approval. It had only lasted a year! She suffered financially as it was not the right timing. Further, she lost her best friend in the process. That was another whole story in itself but needless to say Mary knew exactly what it was to get her own way and had suffered the consequences.
Now she felt better that she did not get her own way regarding the cottage. She knew God put desires in our hearts but they didn’t always look the way we thought they did. Our vision was faulty like the time she had a vision for a dog. In her vision Mary had seen short fat stocky legs and a black spot above the eye of an otherwise all white dog. She assumed it meant she was going to get a Bull Terrier. However, when the time came and the dream came true it was a Jack Russell that her mother dropped into her arms!
This contented Mary's heart that the cottage was not to be. However, perhaps it meant they were still to move but to Windsor. Mary didn’t know. All she knew was she must take everything to God in prayer. She had surrendered the cottage over and realized she wasn’t even sure what she wanted. Charles Stanley made Mary recognize she needed to ask herself what she really wanted. Mary knew her answer: she wanted to be happy. Mary asked herself: Didn’t God want her to be happy? Why of course,” she answered herself. “
Mary decided to follow Psalm 37’s command to delight herself in the Lord and let him give her the desires of her heart. She would commit her way to Him, trust Him, and let Him act and help her! She was tired of holding on to this, trying to figure it all out, and do something about it. Hadn’t she just heard that sometimes God doesn’t answer prayer because we still have something to learn in the situation we are in? She had. So Mary was determined to let go and let God. She was too tired anyways. This later thought made Mary smile as she looked down upon the scripture passage from Psalm 37. Verse seven leapt off the page: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” .Even more exciting was the promise of verse 9 that those who hoped in the Lord would “possess the land”!
Mary didn’t want to imagine anything about what that meant but she knew God loved her and had the best possible future for her if she would trust and hope in Him. It was getting too close to dinner time to fantasize anyways. The drive to Windsor to pick up Robin awaited her. Mary closed her Bible and left her meditations behind.
Later that day, much later, in the evening, in fact, she was listening to a song “When All is Said and Done” being sung by Robin Mark. She realized that the lyrics were speaking to her heart. Mary had been living for so long for herself and tonight she wanted nothing more than to gain back all the lost time she had wasted on herself and do it over. But that was not to be. She also longed for the happiness she was beginning to realize would only be found in God. She had felt it once long ago this evasive remedy to all of life’s woes.
It was on a road she often walked to school in Toronto. She had made her Confirmation that day and was journeying along upon a cloud of happiness. She never felt such joy or intimacy with God. In fact, she had never felt that way before. There were others Mary had known who felt God’s presence at a much younger age than she had. Mary thought to herself: “Perhaps my life would have been different if I would have known His presence at an earlier age.” But Mary realized that because her life had been so full of troubles that this possibility was distanced from reality by grief. As she sat listening to the music she recognized that when all was said and done the happiness she so desired in life was not in things, not in houses but in doing His will.
Nor was true happiness here on earth. And as the song played on she heard “You have shown me heaven’s my true home”. Yes, yes, this was it: heaven was her true home and the happiness she sought was there! Hadn’t her Jesus recently whispered in soft gentle words: that He went ahead to prepare a place for her and that His Father’s house had many mansions? Yes, He had.
All the desires of her heart were real but like her vision of her first dog they were a bit faulty and influenced by her flesh. “Oh, this lust of the flesh!” Mary cried to no one in particular. But it was a disgust that was short lived as Mary acknowledged that she was only human. Her salvation was being worked out even through this. Yet she knew that there would always be this battle of her flesh and spirit. Little by little her disgust of her old self was growing as God was creating this clean heart within her cleansing her of all her idols. She wanted to be rid of self altogether to serve God alone.
Yet, no matter what, Mary knew this one thing: life was only the journey to her heart’s desire: the home that awaited her on the other side. That is where true happiness was – with Him. Perhaps the elusive happiness she had been searching for in things, houses, and what have you was waiting for her someday. It was not here. And then suddenly Mary became aware of how she was feeling: she was happy and at peace! In that moment of truth Mary felt once again the gentle warmth of His sweet love as she had that day on the road so many years ago. Mary smiled to herself touched by His presence a foretaste of the future for the best was yet to come.
Even as she thought these thoughts another Robin Mark song entitled Soul’s Desire played and its lyrics spoke truth into the moment about her own life:
“I was wandering all my days from my Father’s House ... Love was calling out to me just to bring me home”
Mary had been wandering from Her Father searching for love “in all the wrong places”. Yes, it was true the best was yet to come but even now she could experience the bliss of His presence...even now she could experience happiness – in the presence of His love.