Author: Ray Barbier

Why do you seem so content when you have constant pain?

my friend asked.

 

I think I have no goal in life but to notice the small pieces of happiness and try to do good.

Maybe happiness is not to be reached.

Maybe it is just there for all to see who are not in a hurry to reach there.

Small pieces of positivity

in the midst of pain or daily life,

small moments of joy

if noticed,

will make me think before I die

I lived a happy life

 

For me happiness is:

 

Knowing that a special person knows she has inspired me to do better

Giving a homeless friend a place to sleep, an occasional visit to the cinema or sharing a meal

Hearing my father say to a woman that left me three years ago -I love you my child.

An invite to eat or sleep…

It’s been a difficult few months. I won’t get into the specifics. They aren’t terribly interesting, anyway. They’re mostly just pieces of the familiar human story –lessons about loss and sadness and growing up. I’ve been feeling what we all, at one time or another, inevitably feel. At times I have named it “hopelessness,” but that’s not what it is. Not really.

Because I’ve never actually given up hope. I’ve never stopped hoping. I’ve never stopped believing that there is something more, something better, waiting for me in the future. As sad as I may sometimes feel, I’ve never stopped believing in the possibility of happiness. I’ve never given up my faith in joy. I’ve never been that foolish.

I know that these feelings are temporary. As lost as I may sometimes feel, I know that feeling lost is a way to find and to be found. As alone as…

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him…(Matthew 6:8)

I struggle with prayer.

Conceptually and practically.

Most of those struggles are probably because I put unwarranted credence on my feelings at any given prayer moment. If I don’t feel a tangible groaning, or a burning in my chest, or goosebumps on my neck, then my prayers must have been rendered ineffective. Right? If I voice my prayer simply and without a series of major spiritual manifestations then certainly my appeals never made it past the bedroom ceiling. Right?

Wrong.

I am submitting to the awful doctrine that unless my prayer experience “feels” right to me, then God is impotent to answer them. In a twisted way, that is putting emotional subjectivism on the throne and kicking a Sovereign King off of it.

On top of this, Matthew 6:8 raises a different objection in the conscientious Christian:

God already knows what we will ask, so why…