A Happy God

I have never been one to talk about dating and boy-girl relationships. Partly because I have 0 experience in that area and partly because I felt I wasn’t allowed to.  I’ve always been scared of people looking down on me and lowering me to the “love-struck stupid teenager” status.

Lately, I’ve started thinking a lot differently.

I read 2 amazing books this month; “Divine Nobodies” by Jim Palmer and “The Misunderstood God” by Darin Hufford.  The list of things I have learned from these two books is 10 miles long but one point keeps showing up in my life and it’s changing how I think and feel about so many things.

Growing up as a Christian, in and around the church, I was always taught to never put anything above God. (Commandment # 2) I’ve always learned that if we “obsess” over anything, we are making it an idol and therefore, going against God.

Now, for a very obsessive/attached person like myself, this is hard to hear.

I went through a period of my life where I fasted mainstream/secular music. I gave away every non-Christian CD I owned and listened to strictly praise & worship music.  I felt like this would make God happy with me.

I even went through a time when I considered no longer listening to my favorite band, BarlowGirl. It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with their music at all, but simply because I heard that God wasn’t pleased with me since I was so obsessed over them.

It was a very difficult stage to go through feeling like I had to give up all of my favorite things in life in order to ensure that God was happy with me.  This same belief/mindset is what I have been taught my whole life about liking a guy and “dating.”

It’s been engraved onto my brain that I can’t “like” a boy because I would be putting him before God… which would be… bad.

Well, this weekend I learned something that goes completely against everything I have ever been taught. That is this: God is happy when I am happy.

This weekend was one of the best weekends of my life. I had a really fun time with my family and some awesome people in South Florida. I got back to the hotel I was staying at late Saturday night and replayed the whole night in my head. I was smiling bigger than I have in a long time and felt genuinely and completely happy. I wasn’t stressed, worried, scared, or upset about anything. All of my cares in the world were gone and I was 100% happy.

The feeling I felt wasn’t just me and my “high” on life. I sat there on the hotel bed and realized that God was happy for me. It wasn’t just me. He was sharing in my joy. I didn’t just come back from a huge church service or a youth group meeting, or anything like that. My happiness had nothing to do with any “Christian” moment. The source of all my joy was actually pretty selfish… but for once, I wasn’t ashamed. I wasn’t afraid to be happy for myself. I wasn’t afraid to let my excitement show. For the first time, I wasn’t scared of God being disappointed in me.

This summer, when I was visiting my best friend in Tampa, we went to our favorite band’s concert together with her parents. The whole night was amazing and when we got into the car, we were extremely giddy and hyper. Our smiles were permanent and we couldn’t stop talking about all of the great things that happened that night. My friend’s Dad looked at us through the rearview mirror and was smiling at us, with the same joy in his eyes that was in ours. I wondered why he was smiling so big like we were, and he said he really loved seeing us so happy.

I always think of this moment when I think of my relationship with God. When something good happens in my life, my Dad is one of the first people to be happy for me. (Usually.) He shares in my joy and my excitement. When I’m smiling, he’s smiling. He’s happy for me because he loves me.

God is the exact same way. When something good happens in our lives, we feel like we have to give God the credit right away or else He won’t be pleased, but that’s such a harsh view of our God. God is love. When I make an A on a test in school, my Dad doesn’t want me to give him the credit. He gets excited for me because I earned that grade and because he’s proud of me. When I have a really good day and everything seems to be going right, my Dad doesn’t want me to credit him for it. He’s simply just happy that I’m happy.

I think God is the same way. Don’t get me wrong, I thank God for everything that happens in my life because He’s always there… but this weekend, I found myself thanking Him for being happy for me. I felt SO much joy in knowing that God was smiling down on me. Not because I did something to make Him proud, but just because I was happy. That extreme feeling of happiness that I felt was shared with my God… and I can’t describe how amazing that was.

I’m starting to see that relationships are the same way. I’ve read in a lot of places that God gets jealous of our relationships with other people and we have to be careful to not put our best friends or spouses or partners above Him… but maybe we’re looking at it wrong.

I talk to my best friend all day long. I’ll be texting her when I wake up in the morning, and we text before we fall asleep at night. When we’re together, we spend every second talking. I love her and am so thankful to have her in my life, but I never once think that God would take her away from me because He’s jealous. God isn’t upset with me because I spend so much time talking to her. God is happy for me because I have her! I know that God created our friendship, but not so I could credit Him. God created our friendship because He knew what a great positive impact it would have on my life. When He’s watching me and Alex enjoy our time together, He’s smiling… because His girls are happy.

The more I write this, the more I think this blog post sounds extremely selfish… but I think it’s just hard for me to put into words exactly how I felt these past few days.

I was so happy over something that was so self-centered, but I felt God share my happiness with me. I knew at that moment in time that He was happy FOR me. When Alex got accepted into the college she wanted to go to, I was so happy for her. It didn’t have anything to do with me, but the fact that she was so overjoyed and that she got what she wanted made me so happy.

For the past 17 years of my life, I’ve always felt like God doesn’t give me what I want, because He doesn’t want me to put those wants over Him. Every time something bad would happen, I would tell myself that it was God making sure I put Him first. If I didn’t get the present I wanted for Christmas, I told myself it was “OK because God didn’t want me to have it.” When I didn’t get to go to a friend’s house, I told myself that God thought I was spending too much time with that friend.

I turned my own God into an angry dictator that didn’t want me to be happy. I actually believed that He wanted me to be upset to teach me a lesson.

I will never believe that again.

When the guy I have a crush on talks to me and smiles at me, I know that God is happy for me. The God who created me in His image isn’t jealous when I have relationships with other people. I no longer believe that God is mad when I like a guy. That’s how he created me! He knows my heart. He knows where I stand and He knows who I am.

Knowing that God shares and takes part in your happiness is one of the most freeing feelings in the world. It’s a moment in life when you truly realize that you are completely and fully loved in every possible way.

Just like Alex’s Daddy was so happy for us giggly girls the night after that concert, God is happy for his children when good things happen to us. Our smiles bring a smile to His face.

Don’t ever be afraid of disappointing God. All you end up doing is hurting yourself. Let go and live life to the absolute fullest you can. Enjoy every second of it. Don’t be afraid of messing up or “obsessing” over things. Enjoy the life God gave you and let Him enjoy it with you!