Three Temptations: The Three Misconceptions of Happiness

 The three temptations of Jesus are related to the three practices of Lent: penance, almsgiving and prayer. These practices help us to recover the true sense of our dignity. In other words, they help us to purify common misconceptions of what is good for us, misconceptions regarding what it is to be good, a good person.

1. The first misconception is that in order to be good, in order to be happy, I need to feel well. Feeling well, people think, is necessary for happiness, regardless of how moral or not it is in a certain situation. And so, people look for comfort or pleasures, sometimes without even giving a thought to the question about morality. This is because they cannot understand how they could feel good about themselves if they did not have these pleasures. They avoid pain as if it were hell, and search for comforts as if they were heaven, happiness.

Some pleasures are necessary. This is why Jesus says, “man does not live by bread alone.” We need bread to live, our body needs it; but we also have a soul, and this soul needs something different. And if the soul does not have its own bread, which is the word of God, we starve and die, even if our body is satisfied. Instead, even if our body is dissatisfied and hungry, our soul can fly in satisfaction… Is that true? The Lord said that it is and showed it with His own example. How can we experience that? By feeling hungry ourselves and opening our souls to His word. We are not pigs (God bless them for their bacon!) but like incarnate angels, made to fly and to understand beautiful things, made to love and to be loved by God Himself.

Fasting is a way of recovering the sense of what is truly good for us, what we need the most; it is a way of experiencing that we do not need that much pleasure in order to be truly happy. It is a way of experiencing that “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be satisfied.”

2. The second misconception is that in order to be good we need to feel safe regarding the future, with a sense of security that comes from what we have or what we know. If you have money, you are ok, you are good to go. If you don’t have money, you are a loser, and you are not safe for the future. Jesus did not have money, but He was rich in knowledge. Knowing is similar to being rich. And so, the devil tried to make Jesus feel secure in His knowledge: “throw yourself down; for it is written” that God will protect you. Of course, God will protect us, but not because of what we know but because He loves us. Those words were written because He loves us, but He does not love us because it is written. We cannot force God to do what is written. If we do something stupid, we cannot expect being protected. God’s protection is protection from those things that would prevent us to love Him: but some crosses will actually help us to love Him more. Our only assurance of protection is His love, not something we know, not something we own. We live with confidence, not because we have money or because we know things, but because we trust in His love for us. We trust in Someone, not in something: we hope in God’s love. And that love is more powerful than anything else, and can save us from any trouble.

Almsgiving, especially when it hurts a little, helps us to remember that we are truly rich and safe when God is on our side, and if not, there is no money in the world that can give us safety. If we love Him, we can hope in His protection. If we help our neighbour in need, God will help us when we are in need. We need to experience that “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and that “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” We are not better when we have more, but when we hope more.

3. The third misconception is that I can be happy only if I do what I want, that is, if I determine by myself what is good for me. Obedience looks like oppression, worship of a higher power, like humiliation. The world around us and the devil tell us that we are kings, that we must affirm ourselves before anything and anyone else. “Me, and me alone.” Happiness looks like power… the power we think we don’t have. Interestingly, this misconception comes many times from lack of self-esteem. Someone may have made us feel that we were not worth it, that we were losers, that we were failures… and we got trapped into that image of ourselves, and now we want to be free, and we think that this “power” to dictate our own truth and to control people is what will heal our sense of worthlessness…

But this power makes you a lonely king: a king without God because you don’t take your truth from Him, and a king without friends, like every dictator. “It is not good for man to be alone.” Happiness is not about power, but about openness to the other in love. Obedience is not oppression but self-mastery. Worship is not humiliation but self-surrender to God’s love.

Someone may have made you feel that you were not worth it, but God does not make junk. God could not have taken anything better from your mother’s womb. With all your weaknesses and handicaps, you were the best God could put into the world to make it beautiful. In a good movie, everyone is necessary: the main character, the secondary and the extras. In God’s movie you have a place, and nobody corrects the Boss.

Worshipping God is accepting from Him our own worth, our own truth and our own path to happiness. He knows better because He loves us more. Prayer is openness to the love of God, openness to supernatural friendship. It is giving God a chance to love us. It is giving God a chance to talk and to show us the way to happiness.

Being happy is not about feeling well but about being completely satisfied, first of all in our soul. That satisfaction comes from God’s word. Being happy is not about feeling safe because of money, but about being truly safe, in God’s fatherly, even maternal hands. Being happy is not about pride, but about love; it is like being king, but because the King is our Father. We become happy when, like little children, we open ourselves in prayer to our loving Father. May this Lenten season become our own path to true happiness.