There may be nothing more elusive than this idea of happiness, joy, warmness, or what the Scripture often refers to as "blessing." We chase it, dream of it, long for it on dark days. We will rearrange schedules, commit large sums of money, and orient our understanding of healthy relationships around it. Does it make me happy? Yet, oddly enough, it remains just out of reach. Surely, we can boast of momentary achievements of it, days or even seasons of the fulfillment of it, but it never lasts.
In the ministry of Jesus, we find him tackling this subject head on in what is commonly referred to as "The Sermon on the Mount." In the most critical part of the sermon, at the very beginning in Matthew 5:1-11, we run directly into the idea of happiness and blessing. Jesus has walked up on a mountain to proclaim God’s Kingdom and ways, just as Moses had done so many years before on another mountain as the Law of God was revealed.
What’s striking is that Jesus puts the idea of happiness on its head. He argues that real joy comes from a posture of need. Those who humbly come to the desperate conclusion they are poor in spirit, and needing something outside themself, to them Jesus says, "is the kingdom of Heaven." From there the "Beatitudes" build on themselves. Someone poor in spirit mourns over their condition and operates in a meek, non-forceful way. This needy posture brings happiness because promised, to ones like this, are a kingdom, comfort and an inheritance.
This spiritual consequence leads itself very naturally to what Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
The concept of hungering and thirsting is less common in our day as it was in Jesus. Some of us have felt the dull ache of a day or days without a meal, and our parched lips dreaming of refreshment. For not all, but most I would imagine, we have been truly fortunate to not be well acquainted. In a world of fast food, clean water and Amazon two-day shipping, we do not know much about aching and longing (physical or spiritual). I will confess I have been numb most of my life to it.
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So how do we hunger for something we are not sure we need or want? The righteousness of God pales in comparison to my Amazon wish list and the quiet desires of my heart. Simply put, hungering for God only comes when God has shaped need in us. We must come to know the happiness and blessing of spiritual poverty, mourning and meekness. Just as we only see the beauty of the stars against the black backdrop of the night sky, we only come to long for the beauty of Jesus and His righteousness against the backdrop of our need.
His invitation to you and me is to see we are needy, “for they shall be satisfied.”
The Trust Project
