Tag Archives: happy

November 20, 2023 · 5:52 AM

Finding Happiness

I saw an article in Psychology Today called “10 Simple Ways To Finding Happiness”. In it they told people to be around people you likes, find your true purpose and to do things you love. I’m sure it’s a lot of great advice, but it was all very self centered information. I then decided to Google “happiness definition”. It came up with lots of opinions, but the different dictionaries all had something very similar. They basically said that happiness is finding contentment with your current situation. It’s hard to find contentment when you’re current situation keeps going from bad to worse or if you’re constantly trying to find the silver lining. Our circumstances aren’t really a great place to look for contentment and happiness because they’re always changing.

Think of Joseph who had the coat of many colors. While he was at home as dad’s favorite, he found happiness despite what his brothers thought. Then they tried to kills him, but decided to throw him in a pit and rob him of his coat. From there, they sold him into slavery where he was taken to a foreign country. He worked hard for a wealthy man and life was good for a slave until he was accused of rape. Looking for contentment in those circumstances must have been difficult as he was thrown in prison where he sat for years. Somewhere in there he found his happiness in God and waited for God to intervene. In one day he went from prisoner to being second in command of Egypt. When his brothers arrived, he wasn’t mad or bitter because finally he understood God’s plan.

Psalm 37:4 says, “Seek your happiness in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desire” (GNT). Where have you been seeking your happiness? If it’s in circumstances, you probably feel like you’ve been on a roller coaster of emotions. Instead we need to find contentment and happiness in God and in how He’s using our circumstances to shape us and place us. The character of God is love. That’s why He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). God has a plan and your current situation is part of it. He uses difficult times to shape us and to grow our faith. In the moment it can feel like you’re forgotten as Joseph, but God has never lost sight of you, nor has He forgotten you. Find your happiness and contentment in Him rather than your circumstances.

Photo by Edu Lauton on Unsplash

The Pursuit Of Happiness

The Declaration of Independence of The United States says that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are among our inalienable rights as humans given to us by God. We all have the desire to live, to be free, and to be happy. So many of us have spent a lifetime in the pursuit of happiness. We think of we have more money, we’ll be happy. We think of we had a better job, a better house, a faster car, more friends, a bigger church, more toys, or (fill in the blank), we’ll be happy so we pursue those things.

The inalienable right granted to us was the pursuit of happiness, not the pursuit of things though. Yes, God wants you to be happy, but He wants you to find it in Him. If you’ve pursued things to make you happy, you can attest that once you had those things, your happiness faded. They fulfilled you for a short while, but then you wanted a better whatever it was that you pursued. When you pursue things for your happiness, you’ll never be satisfied. You will always want more. That’s why we have the phrase, “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

The pursuit of happiness is different than the pursuit of things to make you happy. You can still desire those other things, but you have to understand that’s not what’s going to fulfill your longing to be happy. Psalm 37:4 says, “Seek your happiness in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desire” (GNT). When we pursue our happiness in God, a funny thing happens. He begins to give us the things we desire. It’s a matter of priorities.

Jesus said it this way in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (ESV). It’s when we seek Him, His Kingdom, and His desires that we will find our happiness. All the other things are a side note to life. Yes, it’s ok to want them and to even have them, but we have to understand that if they are what we are pursuing to make us happy, we I’ll be disappointed. If we will seek our happiness in Him, we will be truly happy and He will bless us with things that will enhance our happiness.

The Promise Of Joy

I’ve often heard that joy is not circumstantial, but happiness is. To many of us, the two are the same. I believe that happiness is an external expression as a result from a feeling. Joy, on the other hand, is what creates hope and optimism even in the face of circumstances that tell you otherwise. Joy is what gives us the strength to put one foot in front of the other, to breathe in and breathe out and to get out of bed when all we want to do is curl up and cry. Joy gives us peace in troubled times.

The Bible speaks a lot about Joy. In one instance, Job had been faced with great loss to his family, finances and health. Things got so bad that his own wife told him, “Curse God and die!” She had let the circumstances steal her Joy. She saw no way out of the situation. She had no hope for the future. She was mad at God, mad at life and mad at her husband. She couldn’t understand why her husband still held onto his faith in God in such trying times. It just didn’t make sense.

I’ve found that a lot of life doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why things happen the way they do. I don’t pretend to know why God doesn’t answer my prayers the way I pray for Him to. Just because He doesn’t, I shouldn’t stop praying. I shouldn’t grow bitter against Him. I shouldn’t sever our relationship. It’s easy to do those things in the midst of a trial if you don’t have Joy. It’s easy to want to quit, renounce your faith and walk away because you’re mad at God. But Job proved that you can go through unimaginable pain and maintain your Joy. Was he sad? Yes. But even in his sadness, he did the hard thing. He held onto Joy.

I’m sure he began to wonder why he was holding onto it after a while. I’m sure over time the situation, the questions and longevity of his trial began to wear on him. During that time, a friend named Bildad came to encourage him. In Job 8:21, he reminded Job of who God was and what He promised His people. He said, “He (God) will once again fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” He reminded Job that the circumstantial sadness was only temporary.

I believe that verse is God’s promise to us today. He will once again return laughter and joy to your life no matter what your circumstances have brought you. I love Psalm 30:5. It’s very familiar to lots of people. You’ve heard it read as, “Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning.” I especially love how the Message puts it. It says, “The nights of crying your eyes out will give way to days of laughter.” Circumstances will tell you those days will never come, but Joy says it’s on its way. That’s a promise from God.

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Tagged as Christianity, circumstancial happiness, daily writer, Devotion, difficult circumstances, god gives joy, happy, hard times, job, joy, joy of the lord is my strength, joy to the world, joy versus happiness, loss, religion