Personal Happiness & The Trinity

Why service is more satisfying than soul searching.

Is there a danger of Christians looking in the wrong places for fulfilment in their Christian lives? I don’t mean looking to money, material gain, worldly status and success for satisfaction – some do of course, but we know our Bibles well enough to know they are ultimately blind alleys in that regard.

Rather I’m thinking of much more spiritual activities – Bible studies, discipleship groups, Christian conferences, and the like. The kind of ‘in-house’ Christian activities that we can spend large parts (sometimes almost all) of our church life being involved in. Now of course we need those type of activities – times when we get together with fellow Christians to encourage, teach, admonish, pray for and share with one another. Such fellowship is crucial to our spiritual growth and vitality. But there can be a danger of these types of activities squeezing out more ‘service’ orientated ones.

By ‘service’ I mean activities that are not based around my needs and designed primarily for my benefit. In fact, activities that call me to do things I’d not automatically choose to do and to spend time in situations that I could spend elsewhere more comfortably. For some that might seem a recipe for more dissatisfaction - perhaps a worthy sacrifice of personal preferences but hardly a route to great joy.

So often we feel restless in our Christian lives, we can nurture a sense a disappointment and boredom about our faith. We hoped it would make us feel fulfilled but actually we just feel frustrated. We get together in groups and can become quite introspective and soul searching as we seek answers to those frustrations and that sense of disappointment. But here’s the thing – when we spend time looking inside ourselves we often end up just more depressed - because what’s inside us is often fairly depressing stuff.

Alternatively, when we turn our focus to others – that is, proactively begin to serve others then things often begin to change. We no longer strain for personal fulfillment but become people concerned about the fulfillment of others. And you know what? We start to become liberated from self and find a joy and a satisfaction outside ourselves - in serving others.

Why should this be? Because this is how the universe is designed to work! It is how God works! The Trinity shows us a God who is ‘other person centred’– the Son loves the Father, the Father glorifies the Son, the Spirit directs attention to the Son and so on and so on. The whole orientation of the Trinity is to be concerned about another - and it is in this Trinity that there is purest joy, contentment and satisfaction. Jesus attained joy through giving Himself sacrificially for the Church (Heb 12:2). It is in giving ourselves sacrificially to others, in being ‘other person centered’ – that we find the pathway to greatest joy.

Why is service better than soul searching? – it makes you happier (really).