Never ending..

Fairy tales always end with the line: “And the all lived happily ever after.” It might be true in a fairy tale, but it’s not true in real life is it? Blaise Pascal (of Pascal’s triangle fame if you remember secondary school maths) said that man’s main aim in life, the thing everyone seeks, is to be happy. He said everything we do, we do because with think it will make us happy. He also said that it doesn’t work and so we do lots of things to try and distract us from that truth! Our pursuit of happiness though is never ending. My latest achievement, if that’s what it is, is becoming a Registered Member of the BACP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy). Thanks you! I had to take a test to qualify. It took the BACP five weeks to tell me I had passed. I can now use their logo on my headed paper and put more letters after my name. Turns out I’ve got quite a few now. Mostly, people won’t understand what the letters mean, and neither will they care that much. But it makes me feel good. Makes me feel like I’ve achieved and done well. I remember when I finished my O Levels (that dates me) I decided I was done with exams! Two years later I took my A Levels. Then I went to university and got a degree. Ten years later I trained for Baptist Ministry and spent three years at Spurgeon’s College. Twenty years later (I’m starting to sound old now) I went to train as a Counsellor and spent another three years in college. On the last day of our training at Waverley Abbey College we sat in circle and said what we were leaving behind and what we were taking away (a very counsellor sort of thing). I said I was leaving behind studying. I wasn’t going to do any more. Never. And yet I just took a test to become a member of the BACP. And I have to do CPD (Continuous Professional Development). And I have to keep a CPD log. And, for the Hospice where I do my counselling, I have to do all sorts of training for which I have to take a test. And I do that for my Chaplaincy role too. And I do that for my role as Minister too! It’s never ending. And…oddly, I do it all to make me happy. To make me feel valuable. To give me credibility. Here’s the thing: it’s tiring! I can hardly keep up with myself. It’s even tiring writing about it. God doesn’t want me to be like that. He really doesn’t. It’s not that I shouldn’t do all these things. Most of them I should do! The problem comes in how I understand what I’m doing. At least that’s what Ecclesiastes says. It can be a chasing after the wind. Everything can be. It’s like trying to catch the wind. You can’t. If I see all these things as a means to my happiness, it’s never ending and it won’t work. But Ecclesiastes invites us to see these things in a different way. These things are not given to make me happy and they cannot, in themselves make me happy. They are generous gifts from a loving God (Ecclesiastes chapter 2). And God’s gifts are to be enjoyed for what they are: gifts! And here’s the thing: God’s giving is never ending. He is uncontrollably generous and endlessly loving. My problem is that I see everything from my point of view. I would do well to listen to the Teacher in Ecclesiastes and begin to see tings from a different point of view: the never ending generosity of God. That’s where happiness lies.