Shared with permission from a fellow teacher-
Overheard in another teacher's class today:
Teacher describes a missionary who did years of work to educate villages to literacy, translate the Bible into their language, help build infrastructure, etc...
Student: "Wow, that guy wasted his life."
Teacher: "What do you mean?"
Student: "The whole point of life is to be happy."
It was a good illustration of just how deeply indoctrinated kids/people are in an unBiblical worldview. Where do you begin to unpack that and debunk it?
My first response to student misinformation is typically to simply ask, "What makes you think that's true?" But in this case, the happiness myth is so ubiquitous, that would be a little like emptying the ocean with a thimble.
What IS the purpose of life? Many, like this student, would say to "be happy," and, then, when pressing as to what THAT means you'd get into many more layers of complexity. The point of life is to be happy and everyone's DEFINITION of happiness is different SO??? Your life's "calling" is to do WHATEVER (you THINK) makes you happy.
One of the more interesting things about the student's perspective is that it didn't occur to him for a second that this missionary's life of service could actually provide a life of happiness.
Our goals as Christian teachers (and Christian parents) start with the truth of the Gospel, but the day to day life of the faith is deeply rooted in these things:
1) God's primary goal is not your superficial sense of happiness (gratification).
2) When you define happiness based on self-concerned pleasure-seeking, you'll always end up dissatisfied, if not in the short term, then in the long-term.
3) True happiness is knowing the God who created you and then loving and serving your neighbor as He has called us to do. (Christians often make a distinction between "joy" in these things vs. "happiness" in superficial things.)
4) God modeled this reality in the self-sacrificial work of Jesus.
This sort of life has depth and meaning, and through depth and meaning, true joy is found.
I share this post because this is not an exclusive issue just for my colleague. This “happiness” goal is not just a student issue. We all have been impacted by a constant bombardment of outside influences that encourage a self-gratifying purpose in life. The result is seen in classrooms, workplaces and homes.
As Holy Week approaches, repentance is a need for each of us. We’re part of the crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem and part of the crowd that jeered him at the cross. Praise God that we are also part of the crowd that is witness to a risen Lord who has made us His Own.
