Lord%20Jesus%20Christ;%20Let%20me%20seek%20you%20by%20desiring%20you,%20and%20let%20me%20desire%20you%20by%20seeking%20you;%20let%20me%20find%20you%20by%20loving%20you,%20and%20love%20you%20in%20finding%20you.%20I%20confess,%20Lord%20with%20thanksgiving,%20that%20you%20have%20made%20me%20in%20your%20image,%20so%20that%20I%20can%20remember%20you,

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• Lord Jesus ChristLet me seek you by desiring
  you,and let me desire you by seeking youlet 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.

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• 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 truthwhich my heart already believes and
  loves.I do not seek to understand so that I can
  believe,but I believe so that I may
  understandand what is more,I believe that
  unless I do believe, I shall not understand.
  Amen.
• - Anselm (1033-1109)

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Whats 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
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What are you searching for?

• The Search

• for love, meaning, significance, etc Happiness!

• We search for a self to be, for other selves to
  love, and for work to do. (Buechner)

• Happiness is elusive

• What brings happiness? right circumstances? more
  leisure? new job? different location? right
  friends?

• Stuff? Achievements? Relationships?

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Four Levels of Happiness
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
Each successive level better
Duration more enduring, lasts longer
Pervasiveness deeper satisfaction
Involvement of human abilities greater use of
body mind, will, heart, spirit
Each level has limitations
Loss at higher levels brings greater pain
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Four Levels of Happiness
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
With Happiness 4, we can enjoy all subordinate
levels because we can enjoy Gods gifts without
mistaking them for the Giver, in other words,
without idolizing them!
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Pleasures Experience Limitations Bible
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. 222) Psalm 1045, 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 cant win Luster fades Winners forgotten Obsession leaves little time for others Achievements vanity (Ecc. 211 416) Blinded to important things (Luke 1619-31) Age (Ec. 12 Ps. 909-10)
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. 909-10) Death
4. Knowledge / Friendship w/ God
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Four Levels of Happiness
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
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)
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Four Levels of Happiness
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
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
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Four Levels of Happiness
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
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 cant get
second things by putting them first you can get
second things only by putting first things first.
--Lewis, God in the Dock, 279-280.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in.
Aim at earth and you get neither. --Lewis
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Four Levels of Happiness
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
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
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Four Levels of Happiness
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
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
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Whats 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.
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• 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 aKempis