In 2014, Victoria Osteen made a statement that quickly hit the internet. “God wants you to be happy” she asserted. I remember rolling my eyes at her cheapened prosperity gospel. It’s not that God wants us to be miserable, but Scripture doesn’t support the idea that his chief aim is our happiness. The entire concept seemed not only naïve to me but an illegitimate concern in the circles of faith where I was a participant.
Fast forward five years, and I realized that some of that thinking had been illuminated in my own life. I’d been believing the same false gospel Osteen preached. I’d bought the lie that, if my life as a Christian looked happy, people would know Jesus is good. If my marriage looked happy, people would know Jesus is good. And if my husband and I were happy foster parents, people would know Jesus is good.
This idea is not only unbiblical; it’s downright dangerous.
Some seasons of my life didn’t fit nicely into this logic. I wrestled with God during some hard and unhappy times, and I now see they were the beginning of the undoing of my wrong understanding. The first came when I was nineteen and spending a summer in Africa caring for orphans. During that trip, I journaled that my heart was both brimming with joy and breaking with loneliness while doing one of the best and hardest things I’ve ever done. But I felt the burden to present only the happy side of the story to my supporters and church back home.