How To Create a Surprising Pre-Condition for Lasting Happiness

I’ve felt the weight of a heavy prayer burden. The kind that squeezes your chest. Sears the soul. Flings question marks. Triggers burning tears.

If it was up to me, I’d write a different climax. A gentler one. A safer one. I’d ease off on foreshadowing what’s coming next.

Maybe it’s my Enneagram 9 talking, but I just want everyone to be happy. Solidly happy, not the conjured-up kind you wear on your face to mask how you really feel.

But it’s not my call, and it’s not your call either in the story you each are living. There are really hard things that don’t make a puddle of sense from where we stand. Things we can’t shield ourselves or anyone else from.

Blessed & Happy

I have to wonder how many of those gathered on a grassy slope to hear Jesus teach the Beatitudes had wrung-out hearts. How many felt emptied and undone. Hopeless in an emergency kind of way.

If you’re not familiar with the term Beatitudes, I’m referring to a sermon Jesus preached that appears stuffed with oxymorons. Like you’ll be blessed when you’re poor, sad, thirsty, and persecuted. In that voice I imagine endeared Him to His disciples, Jesus painted a backward reality where truly lasting happiness comes from entirely unexpected places.

In many versions of the Bible, each of the Beatitudes begins with the word blessed. It’s a comforting word. Perhaps a feel-good one. But not a cheap one.

Blessed is a touch from the tender hand of God.

Blessed is a taste of heaven in right-now-reality.

Blessed is a light flickering in a dim room.

Blessed is being given what we don’t deserve, not getting what we do.

Blessed is not having to earn God’s attention or affection.

Blessed is peace. Joy. Hope. When none of it makes sense.

Blessed is a comforting word. Perhaps a feel-good one. But not a cheap one.

Lately, I find myself drawn to a newer translation, and if you’ve been hanging around here for long, you’ve probably noticed that I typically quote from The Passion Translation. That’s because the words land a little differently for me, partially because it’s incredibly beautiful, but more so because I’m less familiar with it. Familiarity can be license to breeze through. But reading the same passage in another version slows me down, invites me to pay closer attention. I pause often to read the footnotes, and find rich insight here too.

Join me, would you, in the footnote on Matthew 5:3, the first of the Beatitudes, and the one we’ll focus on today.

The Aramaic word toowayhon means “enriched, happy, fortunate, delighted, blissful, content, blessed.” Our English word blessed can indeed fit here, but toowayhon implies more—great happiness, prosperity, abundant goodness, and delight! The word bliss captures all of this meaning. Toowayhon means to have capacity to enjoy union and communion with God. Because the meaning of the word goes beyond merely being “blessed,” this translation uses different phrases for each of the Beatitudes.
Dr. Brian Simmons

The phrase The Passion Translation uses in verse 3 is happiness: “What happiness comes to you when you feel your spiritual poverty! For theirs is the realm of heaven’s kingdom.”

We’re not talking about artificial or fleeting happiness here. This is toowayhon bliss. Pure, uncontainable delight. Knowing and being fully known by God. Forever-access to Him.

But where this happiness comes from might have you shaking your head. Spiritual poverty?! Whatever that is, no thank you!

But stay with me. Especially if you’re shouldering a weight that’s crushing you or praying your small but broken prayer.

The Pre-Condition for Lasting Happiness

Spiritual poverty in straight talk is knowing God is God and we are not. Reaching the end of our limits, and also the conclusion that they don’t stop or even slow God. It’s understanding that we can’t, and because we’re monstrously inept, it’s opportunity for God to be a show-stopper.

Let’s turn to the footnote on this verse, which explains “spiritual poverty” as “humble and totally dependant on God for everything.” The note continues:

It is synonymous with “pious” or “saintly,” not just in the sense of those who possess nothing. It could be translated “Delighted are those who have surrendered completely to God and trust only in Him.”
Dr. Brian Simmons

I’ve tasted this surrender—the sweet with-ness of God found when I press my face into the floor and let tears freely flow. You know God differently on your knees.

The physical posture of surrender unleashes raw honesty. Unfiltered confession. Uninhibited adoration. Opens space in your heart for Him to move in—past your questions and hurts and gripes. Past your self-discipline, multitasking, and stubborn self-reliance. Past your ready generosity. Your good and right resolve and genuine intentions.

The promise in this first Beatitude is that lasting happiness comes to those who know they are not enough. Because unless we know how much we need God, we’ll never really know Him. And to know God and be known by Him is to know delight in the depths of our soul.

Let’s pray.

Dear God, as we shift into summer, help us to slow down. Our pace often puts on a Band-Aid on our lack, but we want to truly see how much we need You. Help us to carve out space to meet with You on our knees. Give us courage to be soul-baringly honest. To come to You broken and undone. To name the things that hold us back from You—and surrender them, one by one.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

Missional Neighboring 101

This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Download your FREE sneak peek today! Also, get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.