Why I Will Not Wish You Happiness and Health in the New Year

Happiness and health are the weak cornerstones of our culture, the false pedestals we have built to uphold our shallow and shaky theology about what God intends life to be about. When they crumble or disappear, which they inevitably will, they bring our worlds and our view of God down with them.

Happiness is not a bad thing and neither is good health. I love to laugh! I love to feel good! I want those I love to experience these wonderful gifts from God, but they are fleeting. Neither health nor happiness is ultimate. Our obsession with them has made them appear to be the pinnacle of experiencing life, but Biblically speaking, this just is not so. An army of healthy, wealthy, happy Christians breeds no depth, no compassion, no urgency or dependency. 

Does that mean that we should not enjoy life and be happy? Exercise and eat right, spend money on vacations with our family, a new house, or save for the future? No. I am simply saying we cannot put our HOPE in any of those things, as they will inevitably let us down. We put our hope in the One who richly provides for all our needs. 

Here is what Jesus said. “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” In other words, the things of this world—our circumstances, our bank accounts, our bodies, our relationships, our health- they will all disappoint us eventually...but put your hope in Me! I am not of this world. I will never disappoint you. 

Following many years of a happy and healthy life, I have had three years of a very difficult pregnancy, some extreme struggles with low iron and thyroid disease, a husband with cancer in his lung, and losing my dad unexpectedly. My little box of health and happiness has effectively been burst. This surely can’t be what Jesus meant when He said, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the fullest.”

Jesus Himself was homeless. He was ridiculed, mocked, run out of town, betrayed, denied, beaten, and crucified by the very ones He came to save. Scholars believe Jesus probably lost His dad Joseph at an early age. He looked into the faces of his dearest friends and knew the brutal deaths most of them would endure. What pain, what disappointment.  If happiness and health were what He came to bring, He would have been a cruel liar. He came to bring infinitely more.

This is why He came. In the middle of the darkest time of my life, in the process of losing what I so greatly value, I have found infinitely more. Beyond the ink on my Bible’s pages, I have truly discovered joy in sorrow, peace in pain, hope in distress, eternity in mortality, and I have experienced the presence of God so near I could almost feel His breath on my shoulder.

I would not wish these last three years of my life on anyone, but I also would not trade them for anything. I choose to accept daily with gratitude and trust all that the Lord has done and will continue to do in the years to come. For my good and His glory.  

This is the incredible mystery of the Gospel, the great exchange. We get fullness for our emptiness. Robes for rags. Dancing for mourning. The last first. The lost found. The broken made whole in Him on whom there is no spot or blemish.  I have Christ. And He is enough. Forever.

I will not wish you a happy and healthy new year because I pray for us exceedingly more than that. A wish has no power behind it, or as my dad used to say, “Wishin’ won’t paint the porch.”  So here is what I pray for those I love in this coming year:

I pray you will choose JOY in all circumstances, which is a great deal better than happiness. I pray for the PEACE of Christ to rule in your hearts no matter what storms you might be facing. I pray for you an abounding HOPE and FAITH in Christ, that you will seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. And I pray that He would be your portion, your all in all…that you would know Jesus and LOVE Him deeply, just as you are fully known and immeasurably loved by Him. 

I pray we would be marked by serving those who have need rather than seeking to eradicate our own needs. And I pray our collective journey heavenward will be toward holiness rather than happiness. 

A Joyful and Hopeful New Year to all. Life abundant. For our good and for His glory.