How to end the pursuit and finally be happy

Do you ever feel like happiness is around the corner—that if you just get there, then you’ll finally be happy?

We all do. But what happens when you get there is that you see another there to reach.

Happiness is an elusive destination that humanity has sought for generations.

The brilliant French thinker, Blaise Pascal, may have said it best in his Pensées:

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

If Pascal is right, then happiness is the primary motivation for everything we do. The hero, the coward, the good, and the evil all act in the way they believe will bring them the most happiness.

If we think about it, we must admit that it’s true.

We don’t teach babies to cry when they’re hungry. They cry to let us know that they’re not happy without food.

I never taught my son to rip a toy from his sister’s hand. He stole from her because he thought he wouldn’t be happy without her toy.

Kids learn to obey their parents because they experience the unhappy consequences of disobedience. Adults follow the law because we believe it will make our lives happier than the penalty of breaking it.

On the flip side, people break the law when they think it is standing between them and something they believe will make them happier. Their desire to be happy supersedes the law.

As the Declaration of Independence says, we’re all born with the innate desire and inalienable right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We all just want to be happy. But the problem is that happiness is elusive, and we are easily misguided.

Our Misguided Pursuit

Some people seek happiness from the outside in—success, money, sex, looks, relationships.

But all these things will fade. When the money ends, the beauty wrinkles, or relationships sour, their happiness goes with it.

Some people look for happiness from the inside out—meditation, mindfulness, living “your truth,” positive thinking, learning to love yourself.

But if you—in all your shortcomings, changing desires, and irrational emotions—are the ultimate source of your happiness, your happiness is a moving target that you’ll never reach for long.

For thousands of years, humanity has tried to find happiness in every imaginable place and come up short again and again. But we repeat the same, hopeless pursuit.

So where then can lasting happiness be found?

Pascal pondered this question and arrived at a profound conclusion:

What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

The reason we all seek happiness is that there once was a time when people had it, but it was lost long ago, leaving an unfinished hole in our life.

From the moment we ate the fruit and rebelled against God, we lost the only thing that can bring lasting happiness—God himself.

True happiness is only found when the creation delights in the Creator (Psalm 37:4).

Happiness can’t be found outside in or inside out; it’s found upside down.

We’ll only find happiness when we stop trying to find it and see that God has already found us. He has been hiding in plain sight for us to see and receive the lasting happiness only he can bring.

To Be Happy is to Know God

When a created being delights only in itself or another creation, it always falls short.

When we delight in the Lord, our happiness is found in an unchanging, immovable, unshakeable, all-powerful, eternal God. So no matter what condition the world throws at us, we’re still good.

This is why Paul could boast, “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:8–10).

Most people seek happiness and never find it because they look for it in finite, ever-changing creations. True happiness is in the infinite, unchanging God.

The age-old desire for happiness is proof that it exists, but our inability to find it is proof we can’t attain it on our own.

Our longing for happiness is a desire to fill the missing hole of the ancient relationship between God and humanity.

We are hopeless in our endless pursuit of happiness. But praise God that through Jesus, God left heaven and found us, bringing with him the everlasting love, peace, joy, and happiness he created us to enjoy (John 3:16).

So if you want to be happy, stop looking. You won’t find it until you realize it has already found you in Jesus.