Should We Actually Pursue Happiness?

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may have figured out that I’m a fairly ambitious person. I have big dreams and goals, I have this crazy idea in my head that God has created me (and each one of you) for a reason. I think we each have a purpose on earth, something that we have been uniquely called to do that will in some way change the world.

And I don’t mean that flippantly. I realize “change the world” is a huge thing and claiming that we all have an important role in changing the world may sound ridiculous to some. But that is what I believe. We all have a part to play in the story of God’s perfect plan. But I think so many people often miss their part.

I think we often get consumed by the trials and challenges, the stresses and exhaustion, the distractions and stuff of this earth that we lose sight of the reason we are here in the first place. And I think that our purpose is not exactly explained to us in crystal clear detail, so for many of us, we give up trying to figure it out and choose something else entirely.

Because knowing our purpose, knowing our call in life, knowing what God has uniquely placed us on this earth to accomplish takes guts, takes work, and takes massive amounts of trust and reliance on God. Fulfilling the call that God has placed on our lives requires work and effort, focus and strength, sacrifice, and sometimes pain and struggle. Who would sign up for a life like that when we could just pursue happiness and joy, peace and prosperity?

I’m not saying that living a life for God is choosing pain and struggle against joy and happiness. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. I think when we pursue happiness, peace, and prosperity outside of God’s call on our lives, when we attempt to find these things on our own, we actually find the opposite. We search and search in all the wrong places for the things that God has promised us, doing everything to avoid pain and struggle and sacrifice and heartache. And sometimes it works for a while, or at least we can make it appear to work. We can choose joy, we can put on a mask of a peaceful life on our social media accounts, we can credit card our way into appearing prosperous, but when we’re truthful, we realize that something is missing, something just isn’t the way it should be.

So what does happen if instead we choose to trust God? What happens if we choose to give, to serve, to work, to sacrifice, to pursue the hard life in search of the good life? What happens when we seek after God, seek after His purposes, and follow His leading into the hard, into the scary, into the painful places? What happens when we realize that there is more to this earth than enjoying ourselves and our own peace and happiness? What becomes of us when we sacrifice our dreams for God’s plan?

I think this is the work and the life God has called us to. One that doesn’t necessarily pursue a perfect happy life, but a life that pursues Him. When we focus the efforts of our life on seeking and following God instead of seeking happiness and following our own desires, this is when we find our true joy, our true fulfillment, and true prosperity.

Today, consider what you are pursuing. Are you striving to find and create your own peace and happiness or are you striving to find Jesus and allowing Him to provide exactly what you need. Trusting that His plan, though sometimes hard, sometimes scary, and sometimes frustrating, His plan, will always lead to good, to love, to joy, to peace.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:11-13