The happiest people I’ve known are also the ones who I’ve watched selflessly serve others.
My Grandma and my wife are two people in my life who exemplify this. They are people pleasers. Now, there are good and bad people pleasers.
The bad ones want something out of you. But both these ladies are simply happiest when they are making others happy. They just do it to do it. Why?
Jesus, who is the perfect human image of God, fully pleases God, and it delights Jesus to do it, as only one perfect Being can please another. It’s part of the perpetually pleasing back and forth of the members of the Trinity.
As humans, we are made in the image of God, so we have some sense of it, too. That’s why when we please other image bearers, it just makes us happy.
You can only find happiness in either the true image or the image bearer. You can’t find it in yourself or in an inanimate object, because its something that has to be reflected back at you by another Being.
- Happy in the True Image: It’s a not-so-vicious circle. We live by God’s good- are happy in it- so we do more of God’s good- and are even happier. And since God is most pleased with us when we love and obey Him, so we are pleased and content, too.
- And Happy in the Image Bearer: what brings happiness in others, bring happiness in us. And who doesn’t like being around happy people? So when we please others- love your neighbor style- they are happy, and so are we.
Drive By Theology 