When God Told Me I was Happy

"Why didn't you tell me I was happy?"

 One of my more modern favorite TV shows is Monk. If you have never seen it, Adrian Monk is a former police detective who lost his badge due to his grief over his wife's' murder combined with his extreme case of OCD and many phobias. He then becomes a private detective that works for the police with two goals in life: to get reinstated and solve the case of his wife's murder.

 In the episode that I recently watched, Monk gets reinstated. He is the happiest man in the world going to his office and pulling out his old uniform because he finally got what he wanted. Except it's different. There is new technology. He has to work on a team. He has to do the annoying jobs instead of only picking the cases he wants. At one point in the episode Monk is sitting in his therapists' office complaining about he wishes his life could go back to what it was before he was reinstated. And he turns to his therapist and says, "Why didn't you tell me I was happy?"

 I have strange fears. One is the fear that I will never have what I truly long for--the secret wishes I make in the dark. Another is that I will someday have all that I have ever desired. I am afraid it will not be all that I imagined it to be. I am afraid that like Monk I will achieve my dream and only long for what I had. I am afraid, like Rapunzel, that my dream will not be what I longed for.

 God, why didn't You tell me I was happy? 

 I did.

 When?

 When I chose you before the foundation of the world. When I formed you in your mother's womb. When I sent my son to die for you. When you asked me to come into your heart. When your sister was born. When you realized I wanted you to share my gospel through your writing. When your parents told you officially you could go away to school. When you realized all alone in Michigan on a strange campus that I was all you had. When you read in my Word about the joy and happiness I bring. Every day that has passed that I have stayed by your side.

 Since when did my happiness become something I have to feel to know it is real?

 Since when did things have to be going my way for me to be happy?

 Someday God will give me all that I desire. All I desire is Him, and He is with me now and will be with me fully when I die and go to heaven. So unlike Rapunzel I don't need a new dream. And unlike Monk I don't have to wish my life was the way it had been before.

 My Savior and my God is my old and new dream. He is my happiness even when I don't feel happy. He died to bring me joy when I don't feel the joy of Him.