The Pursuit of Godliness

I’ve been thinking lately about the different methods that God uses to make us more like him, and how they are rarely pleasant.
The culture we live in is obsessed with the ‘pursuit of happiness’. We live in an era where happiness is the aim.  Life just isn’t meaningful if you’re not in a seemingly unachievable, state of permanent happiness. It’s a goal which is elusive, sets unrealistic expectations and is just downright unhealthy.

I remember when I was in high school, writing a prayer for a young guy who I was kind of mentoring at the time.  In this letter, I distinctly remember writing something along these lines.  “I wish that I could pray that you would never have to face pain and hardship, but you will.  And it’s a good thing.  If you never had to deal with those things, you would never grow.”

Because growth is hard.  Growth rarely happens when we’re cruising through life.  We don’t develop muscle unless there are hills to climb.  And we don’t become like Jesus without staring our ugly sin in the face and deciding to do something about it.  Something that takes effort.

Romans 5:3-4 (NLT) – We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

I think, perhaps, instead of the pursuit of happiness we should be putting our time into the pursuit of godliness.  We should be aiming to become more like Jesus.  In a round about way, I think that this focus is what leads to joy.  This is the perspective that it takes to look at problems and trials and come away rejoicing.

Because I’ve found when the focus is on becoming more like Jesus, that those times in my life that cause me anguish have more depth to them.  I can look and see that God is moving.  I can look at my own ugliness in those moments and recognise that it’s OK.  It’s actually a good thing that I’m walking through a situation that is making me aware of this and causing me to do something about it.

It seems to be that God takes us through exact circumstances to reveal our sin to us and to give us a chance to change.

For me, the biggest way this came last year was stopping uni.  Having high blood pressure at the beginning of my pregnancy made me choose, my family or my studies.  But it was more than just that choice.  It was actually about God revealing to me that I was placing my identity in something other than him.  It was revealing pride.  More recently, doing the house cleaning for this last move a few weeks ago was stressful.  It wasn’t something that I wanted to be doing at that point in time.  But it revealed to me that my perfectionism isn’t healthy.  It’s actually becoming compulsive and is controlling my life in a way that only God should.

When you look at situations with character growth in mind, suddenly a difficult co-worker becomes a chance to develop patience.  A major life upheaval becomes a chance to increase in faith.  A job cut becomes a revelation of the way money has been slipping through your fingers.  Arguments in marriage become a flash light into the areas of your life that you struggle in, and an opportunity to change.  You get the chance to grow.  To experience unfailing grace.  To blossom into something more and more beautiful.  You get the chance to walk closer to Jesus.  And that is something worth rejoicing over.