Emotion Wheel: Happiness
Notes
Transcript
Emotion Wheel: Happiness
Emotion Wheel: Happiness
I mentioned that for most of my life I struggled to be in touch with my emotions.
I linked an emotionless life to godliness.
I believed that God was able to move past emotions and simply make the decisions that needed to be made.
But I found myself struggling with that belief.
Eventually, I grew up and discovered that I did feel things.
But I had no language for how I felt.
Until one day, I discovered something on the internet.
It was called an emotion wheel.
Here is what one looks like.
I used to be embarrassed to admit that I needed something like this to put a name to how I felt.
Then I noticed how many of these exist on Google. Try it. Google emotion wheel, click on images, and see how many exist.
What this told me was many, many people need help 1) naming what they feel, and 2) communicating how they feel with others.
I guess I am not alone!
And I learned something about emotions from my friends at DM:
***Emotions are information***
We are going to take one primary emotion around the center of the wheel each week and explore it through a biblical character.
Last week we did Fear.
This week, we are going to cover Happiness.
Let’s be interactive.
When I say ‘happiness’ what is the first thought in your mind?
Was it a person? A situation? Yourself?
And object, like money, house, car?
How about here in church?
If I were to suggest ‘happiness, God, scripture, Jesus’ do any of those conjure a different answer in your mind?
How many of you associate happiness with God?
Let’s dispel that idea right now.
The first occurence of ‘happiness’ happens in Leviticus 23:39-43
“Remember that this seven-day festival to the Lord—the Festival of Shelters—begins on the fifteenth day of the appointed month, after you have harvested all the produce of the land. The first day and the eighth day of the festival will be days of complete rest. On the first day gather branches from magnificent trees—palm fronds, boughs from leafy trees, and willows that grow by the streams. Then celebrate with joy before the Lord your God for seven days. You must observe this festival to the Lord for seven days every year. This is a permanent law for you, and it must be observed in the appointed month from generation to generation. For seven days you must live outside in little shelters. All native-born Israelites must live in shelters. This will remind each new generation of Israelites that I made their ancestors live in shelters when I rescued them from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
Did you know that happiness, joy, is something parts of creation will do?
Let the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth.
Let’s look at three stories that many of you are likely familiar with.
And, yes, I know there is a difference between happiness and joy…
Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!
So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”
To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
“A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
“When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.” ’
“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’
“But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
“The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’
“His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’ ”
Imagine this family dynamic…
The son who left is shocked by his father’s response
The prodigal likely feels shame, unbelief, foreboding joy (shoe to drop)
The son who stayed is beyond angry
He likely feels like his loyalty has not been rewarded, overlooked, unheard, jealous
The father is happy, filled with joy
His son is found and resurrected
Can you imagine how thanksgiving will go?
Biblical joy and happiness are upside down in scripture.
For example…
What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, their ancestors treated the ancient prophets that same way.
“God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.
If you can accomplish this…then you join the company of the prophets.
Do you notice how it is upside down?
When you are mocked, persecuted, lied about, and spoken evil of, ON ACCOUNT OF FOLLOWING JESUS…not on account of you being a jerk about your faith…
Then you are blessed.
Be happy about it
Be very glad
Okay, that is the biblical background to happy, glad, joy, etc.
Brene Brown puts a few things together in her writings:
Joy, happiness, calm, contentment, gratitude, foreboding joy, relief, and tranquility
Joy: Sudden, unexpected, short-lasting, and high-intensity. It’s usually connected with others, God, and creation. Joy expands thinking and attention, and fills us with freedom and abandon.
In Greek thought, joy was found in God and includes virtue and wisdom.
Happiness: Tends to be stable, longer-lasting, and normally the result of effort. It’s lower in intensity than joy, and more self-focused. With happiness we might feel in control. Happiness seems more external and circumstantial.
Like the freedom of the rich from ordinary cares and worries, often links to money and health.
Joy and happiness are not the same, they are different.
There are three problems with joy and happiness:
First, they are highly subjective
Second, they are used to measure God’s promises
Third, they are used to measure your faith
Let’s take Jesus’ words as an example:
When others come after you, rejoice, be glad.
You should ask yourself: Is there any truth to what they are saying?
Fani Willis was giving a sermon/speech on Jan 14, last month, talking about the challenges of prosecuting a former president. She said, “God, I trust you, God, I thank you, God, I love you, I thank you for every attack that makes me stronger,” she said. “See, I sit here with a peace that passes all understanding.”
Recently, she finds herself in the witness stand, and it turns out, her credibility is being examined. It looks like she might have misstated when she started seeing a married man.
But she is not giving up her position.
She said, "Different people from all different walks of life keep sending me this one Scripture, and I don't think I ever really heard it till maybe two days ago," she said. "The Scripture they keep sending me is 'no weapon formed against you shall prosper,'" Willis noted. The passage in question comes from Isaiah 54:17. She stressed that "they did not say the weapons will not form, and that's the part I didn't hear until recently." She added, "just because they won't prosper, it doesn't mean that they won't form."
Willis went on to say, "Even if you feel like everything you are doing in your life is the right thing and you're making mistakes all along the way, but you are trying, you should not think that those weapons will not form.”
She also said.
"The other lesson that I've learned in these three years is God ordains those weapons. He puts those weapons in your life to form against you and if you really understand Him, you become in your maturity to understand He does it for a reason and it's to grow you and it's to make you stronger and it is to prepare you." (Fani Willis)
(Reformed Calvinism)
She is taking the words of Jesus, “when people mock you, say evil of you, persecute you, lie about you, then rejoice.”
Did you catch the part of the verse I left out?
“Because you are my followers…”
“Because you follow the Son of Man…”
In other words, because you do the things Jesus did.
If it is true, that she lied about when the relationship started, she hired the man she was dating for the Trump trial, and she mishandled money, then…
She is using scripture to manufacture ‘joy’ by placing her actions in the category of the Devil’s arrows, and God will get her out of it.
There are three problems with joy and happiness:
First, they are highly subjective
Second, they are used to measure God’s promises
Third, they are used to measure your faith
Do not use joy and happiness to measure God’s promises OR your faith.
Emotion Wheel: Happiness
Emotion Wheel: Happiness