Stop Chasing Happiness
We live in a society that constantly tells us we need to have more, buy more, do more in order to be happy. And we willingly accept this notion. Except, there’s a few problems:
First, this notion perpetuates an idea that people, places and things have the ability to make us happy:
- We believe having financial stability, or even wealth, will solve all our life struggles. Except, even the billionaires of the world have problems.
- If we travel enough, we’ll see all the world has to offer. Except, no matter where we go, we can’t escape humanity’s flaws.
- We think if we date or marry the right person, all our desires will be met. Except, even the people who understand you the best will inevitably let you down in some way.
Second, because the pleasure that accompanies these things is temporary, the pursuit is never-ending. Which means it’s exhausting.
And finally, the reality is that happiness isn’t really what you’re searching for–peace is.
We Were Created for Peace
We say all we want is “to be happy,” but what we really want is to be able to handle stress with ease. We want to be okay when things around us are not okay. We want to find meaning in tragedy. We want our relationship to be less dramatic. We want our lives to be impactful on the world around us.
What we’re really craving isn’t happiness, it’s peace.
We spend our lives fueling our bodies and filling our minds with information, but we’re starving our souls.
We spend our lives fueling our bodies and filling our minds with information, but we’re starving our souls. Because peace is what we were created for.
According to Genesis, God created us to be with Him. In the Garden of Eden, He gave our first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, everything they needed not only to survive but to thrive. Their lives were essentially perfect; their days were spent enjoying the presence of the Father and of each other. They wanted for nothing.
Then they sinned. Ironically, it was the pursuit of more–the lie that the Tree of Knowledge would somehow give them what God was keeping from them–that led to that sin. What they found when they bit into the fruit wasn’t something better, it was chaos.
Because after sinning, they could no longer be in the presence of a Holy God. Suddenly they couldn’t do what they were created to do.
Your money, your job, and your significant other can’t give you what you’re searching because your soul is craving what is was made for: it’s Creator. This is why your endless pursuit of happiness always leaves you feeling exhausted and empty.
How to Receive Peace
There is hope: peace is possible. It’s just not something you can obtain on your own.
But here’s the Good News: God loves you, and He can’t stand the separation your sin causes between you and Him. So, through Jesus’s death and resurrection, He made a way for you to be reconciled to Him.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance…” – Romans 5:1-3
When you recognize and believe this truth by aligning your life and will with Jesus’s (who is fully God and fully man), when you a pursue a relationship with Him as Lord over your life, you find everything you were chasing after:
- You can handle stress with ease and be okay when life’s not okay because you can rest in the confidence of God’s power and presence
- You’ll stop searching for meaning in tragedy because God’s purpose and plan supersedes all other priorities
- The inner peace you’ve found will overflow into your outward relationships
- The Holy Spirit can (and wants too!) work through you to bring the hope of reconciliation with God to others, changing their lives and eternities
Stop chasing happiness. Pursue Jesus and receive peace in the process.
Inspired by the first sermon and section of Mt. Bethel’s study on Peace, entitled “Peace with God,” written and delivered by Dr. Jody Ray. You can view the original sermon here, as well as subscribe to download an eBook version of the study guide which provides daily devotions to help you dive deeper.