Lord Jesus Christ; Let me seek you by desiring you, and let me desire you by seeking you; let me find you by loving you, and love you in finding you. I confess, Lord with thanksgiving, that you have made me in your image, so that I can remember you, think of you, and love you. But that image is so worn and blotted out by faults, and darkened by the smoke of sin, that it cannot do that for which it was made, unless you renew and refashion it.

Lord, I am not trying to make my way to your height, for my understanding is in no way equal to that, but I do desire to understand a little of your truth which my heart already believes and loves. I do not seek to understand so that I can believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand. Amen. - Anselm ( )

What’s Your Story? Who are You? Your Story Where are You? Your Journey What are You Searching For? Your Treasure How Far Have You Come? Your Progress With Whom are You Searching? Your Community

What are you searching for? The Search… for love, meaning, significance, etc …Happiness!for love, meaning, significance, etc …Happiness! Happiness is elusiveHappiness is elusive ?What brings happiness? right circumstances? more leisure? new job? different location? right friends? ?Stuff? Achievements? Relationships? ?“We search for a self to be, for other selves to love, and for work to do.” (Buechner)

Pleasures 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God Four Levels of Happiness Each successive level better Each level has limitations Loss at higher levels brings greater pain Duration: Duration: more enduring, lasts longer Pervasiveness: Pervasiveness: deeper satisfaction Involvement of human abilities: Involvement of human abilities: greater use of body – mind, will, heart, spirit

Pleasures 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God Four Levels of Happiness With Happiness 4, we can enjoy all subordinate levels because we can enjoy God’s gifts without mistaking them for the Giver, in other words, without idolizing them!

PleasuresExperienceLimitationsBible 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex Very intense Immediate Gratification Requires little intellectual activity Food for physical needs is good; for emotional needs is damaging. Short-lived pleasures can lead enslavement Jesus enjoyed food /drink. Banquet symbolizes glory (Mt. 22:2) Psalm 104:5, S of Songs Unrestrained enjoyment: gluttony, drunken, lust 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval Training of body Control of emotions Sharpening mind Resolution of will All can’t win Luster fades Winners forgotten Obsession leaves little time for others Achievements vanity (Ecc. 2:11; 4:16) Blinded to important things (Luke 16:19-31) Age (Ec. 12; Ps. 90:9-10) 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes Mutuality / Intimacy Sharing soul – not just abilities More happiness in giving Comes closest to satisfying deepest human longings Children grow Friends move Spouse dies Love fades People let us down Obsession / Manipulation / Control Age (Ec. 12; Ps. 90:9-10) Death 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God

Pleasures 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God Four Levels of Happiness In this journey, be it noted, one gives up the clinging, the craving, the attachment, the possessiveness -- not the thing itself. For all the things that God made are good and beautiful and true. (Johnston, 1995, 149) We use people for our purposes... Others cannot carry the load of our expectations; sooner or later they must disappoint us... We cannot love others fully and authentically until we detach ourselves from others. This is another of the great paradoxes of life. So long as our "love" is really a tool of transference, an attempt to possess and control, we will never be able to give ourselves; so long as we turn others into substitute heroes to save us, we will be manipulators more than lovers. (McCullough, 2004, 40, 41)

Pleasures 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God Four Levels of Happiness First Things: To sacrifice the greater good for the less and then not to get the lesser good after all – that is the surprising folly… The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication…

Pleasures 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God Four Levels of Happiness First Things: …every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made… You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first. --Lewis, God in the Dock, Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. --Lewis

Pleasures 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God Four Levels of Happiness If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo or mirage. -- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Pleasures 1. Derived from satisfaction of bodily appetites: Meal when hungry Drink when thirsty Rest when tired, Sex 2. Involve the will / mind: Achievement Success Winning others’ approval 3. Involve the heart: Personal relationships: Friendships / Family / etc. Love / serve neighbor Volunteers Devotion to people/causes 4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God Four Levels of Happiness Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. --C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

What’s Your Story? StoryTelling Questions: Describe a time when a pleasure from level 1 – 3 was enhanced by happiness 4. As you look back over your life, can you think of situations where you experienced all four levels of happiness together? Describe.

My God and my All! What greater blessing can I receive than your love? What greater wealth can I possess than your grace? What greater pleasure can I enjoy than your presence? What greater sweetness can I taste than your body and blood? What greater wisdom can I know than your gospel? Your wisdom is so simple that even fools like myself can understand it. Your holy communion is so generously given that even sinners like me are allowed to receive it. Your presence is everywhere so that even someone with such a dull mind as I have can find you. Your grace is such a constant source of reassurance that I can trust you completely for all my spiritual and material needs. And your love is so warm and so forgiving that even a cold, hard heart like my own is melted. --Thomas a’Kempis