happiness is overated

The last week in July we went to Green Lake Conference Center for the American Baptist Holy Spirit Renewal Ministries Conference. and as usual it was an awesome time. The main speaker was JP Moreland. I was impressed. He was a professor of Philosophy at Loyola University. His first topic was on happiness, and what he had to say stayed with me. The few points I got were, happiness is overrated, the search for it has diminishing returns and even tho the American dream is more accessible now than 30 yrs ago, people are by far more stressed and depressed. So the solution to this epidemic is to see how the definition of happiness has changed over the last couple of hundred years. Now the definition to happiness is a pleasurable feeling and we look for that in everything we do, thats how we gauge our marriages, our churches, our jobs, etc. "As long as it makes ya happy" So we are set on consuming units of pleasure to keep us happy, thus the diminishing return and the rise of depression. All of that I kinda knew, but the definition of happiness for most of history is interesting, It was to have a life well lived. To live your life for a purpose greater than yourself. Isnt that so true? Isnt that what Jesus says. If you lose yourself for my sake you will find it. Too true. So if we spend our lives pouring ourselves out for the sake of the Kingdom and the King we will have a happy life.
Its not about us !!! Well, it is but not the way we think.