Pursuing Happiness

Are you pursuing happiness? What if the road you’re on doesn’t end there?

“Now hold it right there for just a minute. I’m an American. Happiness is my right!”

Is it? The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Pursuing happiness and achieving happiness isn’t the same thing. As someone once wryly observed, “Happiness is in the pursuit thereof.”

So is happiness a destination or just the journey? Maybe both.

In the 1960’s a popular song declared, “Happiness is different things to different people.” And as they say, “Truer words were never spoken.”

What is happiness to you? How would you define it?

American frontier hero Daniel Boone famously said, “All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse and a good wife.” (I wonder how his wife felt about that!)

Fascinating new research reveals that certain choices and behaviors determine our happiness.

In a July 2008 Reader’s Digest article, “Why We’re Happy,” Arthur C. Brooks admits he “had always thought that marching to the beat of my own drummer and making up my own values as I went along were the right things to do, and that traditional values…were for suckers.”

It turns out he was in for a surprise. Brooks’ research found that the number one predictor of happiness was a person’s faith. He writes, “In general, religious Americans (those who attend a place of worship almost every week or more) are happier than those who rarely or never attend.”

Brooks also discovered that secularists were nearly twice as likely as religious people to say, “I’m a failure.”

Other happiness predictors were a strong work ethic, a good marriage, giving back through charity and living in a free society. But, while economic, religious and political freedom brings happiness, a lack of restrictions on moral behavior, did not. Loose living brought unhappiness.

Brooks adds, “People who feel they have unlimited moral choices in their lives when it comes to matters of sex or drugs, for example, tend to be unhappier.”

Did you catch that? People are happier living within the limits of Biblical morality than when they have unlimited moral choices! Why do so few see that? Because of a false view of God.

Many people view God as a stern grandfatherly type. They see him as looking down from the windows of Heaven--and when he sees someone having a good time, he says, “Now cut that out!” They think God is anti-happiness.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Bible gives us a picture of a holy God who loves us more than we know. He made us to experience joy, peace and fulfillment through a personal relationship with him. And he has gone out of his way to reveal himself to us through nature and through the Bible.

If that’s not your picture of God then I invite you to set aside your ideas about him and pick up a Bible again. Get a reliable modern translation like the New International Version.

Then turn to the New Testament and read the Gospel of John. Or read the story of the Lost Son in the Gospel of Luke chapter 15. Let Jesus introduce you to the God who loves you.

Only the Bible can put you on the path that leads to a joyful life now and lasts forever.

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!