God showed up for me this week when I read this quote.

“Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” - C.S. Lewis.

How true is that? How horribly awful, too?

I say horribly awful because we are often so trapped inside our routine of normalcy that we don't want to be moved or stretched outside of our comfort zone. And, so, right now your heart is starting to be convicted -- not by me, I've got nothing to do with it, I may not even know you -- but by the Holy Spirit.

Happiness is a concept that this generation has accepted as being the thing you strive toward most. "Oh, whatever makes you happy, that's what you should do." When did we come to a place where that was OK?

We were given two commandments in the New Testament to sum up all the other commandments in the Old Testament.

“And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:37-40 ESV

Notice the greatest commandment isn't: “Do whatever makes you and only you happy.” That's not in there. If anything, first make the Lord your God happy, then you're neighbor, if you're really hung up on the whole happy thing.

Now I'm not saying that having happiness is bad. I want that for you (I probably don't know you, but that doesn't mean I'm not rooting for you), but we need to back away from the world's description of what happiness looks like today. For me, 99 percent of the time, I truly am happiest when I'm doing something for others. But, I think of the world's definition of happiness and it's often selfish. I would love for the definition of it to be redefined.

Psalm 37:4 paraphrased says, "Find happiness in the Lord. He is the only one who can give you the true desires of your heart."

This week I had to get my wisdom teeth extracted (extraction is a great word to use for those who are squeamish of such things), and as we (my sister Emma got hers out too) were waiting I began making a lot of morbid death jokes. How I handle nerves is with jokes and how Emma handles nerves is with worrying and worst case scenarios. Her worst case scenario was death in this case.

However, for me, I don't fear death. Not at all. I know where I'm going and it's a lot more fun than anything this earth has to offer. Which is good because it gives me a whole lot of peace, but annoys those who don't have the death is fine mindset.

And so I'm joking around and Emma's getting upset because I won't stop with saying I want my ashes scattered. As she goes back before me, I say, "Hey Em, see you in heaven" and I flash her a hang loose sign and she just looks at me with a pair of daggers in her eyes (#bestjokeoftheday #ilovebeingaChristian).

But, for me, leading up to the surgery, I had this sense of peace. I was thinking in my head to God and said basically, "God I'm not afraid to die, never have been, but I don't think you're finished with me yet on this planet." And I walked back, they put me to sleep and I've been dealing with the grogginess of drugs since (I'm healing up good, but as usual Emma's doing better at that too).

All joking aside, when I go, I want it to be at a time when I've given everything I have to Him. I do not believe I'll be with Him until His sovereign timing has come, and in the meantime I have nothing to fear and nothing to hold back.

So going back to our quote (“Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” ~C.S. Lewis), what are we holding onto? What is the thing that has our heart?

I was listening to a podcast this Sunday instead of going to church (I was still feeling off from wisdom teeth extraction, I'm not a heathen) and the speaker, Christine Caine, said something close to this: For some of us there's so much of us inside us that it leaves little room for God.

Replace "us" with "me" for a moment and that statement begins to sound very self-centered and far away from the point of our lives. I'll give you a hint what the point of our lives is: Him. He is supposed to be the focus of our life. We tend to miss God these days because we have so many other things vying for our attention. But God doesn't want us to remain there He wants us to hold onto something permanent.

He says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26 ESV

1 John 2 drives this point home with conviction.

“Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything that belongs to the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s lifestyle — is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does God’s will remains forever.” 1 John 2:15-17 HCSB

Contrary to popular belief, we do all dream, and in my dreams there have been times when I've won a million dollars or received the biggest and best ice cream cone, but every morning when I wake up, even though I wish and wish that I could keep what I had there, when I open my eyes those things aren't real.

The same thing is true for when you leave this place. At the end of your life, when you're having that last long distance chat with God, you're not going to be talking about the house you wished you could've had or all the TV you could've watched or the new car you could've owned because none of that is going with you. We weren't made for this world. We exist in an exile right now, and we're running towards something greater.

Nothing that this planet has to offer can we take with us, so let what you choose to find happiness in be from above and be from Him.