Searching for Happiness

People say that happiness is a way of life and not a destination, but for me it always has been. A destination, that is.

It’s never been a destination in the way that I’d think, “I want to find happiness someday,” or, “I want to go to happiness sometime.” Instead, my heart for traveling had found happiness in its most previous excursion.  

My family took a number of vacations when I was younger, so I've been traveling to different places for as long as I can remember. I never appreciated it much as a child, but my love for it grew as I did.

Each place spoke differently, but something about them spoke deeply to my heart. I learned that I love new places. I love experiencing different people and different cultures. I constantly reminisce about the places that I've been and I dream each day about the places where I plan to go next.

My destinations were my happiness; my happiness a destination.

Don’t get me wrong: traveling has certainly never been my entire life, but lately it’s been competing closely with other passions to become the most prominent.

Unfortunately for me this meant that when my dreams to travel seemed to fall apart, my happiness did so, too.

It all started when my dream to study abroad in Spain died. I had wanted for years to spend a summer in Europe learning of and experiencing the cultures and people in Spain. However, different plans came together, my life took unexpected turns, and my dream was put on the back-burner. At first I believed that I was only postponing the trip for the future, but I continually become less and less hopeful of that each day.

This experience of seemingly losing my dream created in me an irrational fear that none of my desires to travel would ever come to fruition. This then resulted in an incredible urge to “get up and go” before another opportunity passed by me. Nothing else seemed to matter as much, and every morning was only one more closer to the morning when I would leave. 

This dream quickly began to consume me. It became a dream fueled by fear instead of by passion, but I was far too engrossed by it all to notice.    

I started to pray about it numerous times each day because I was distraught about what to do and when to do it, but I wasn't really searching for answers. Being honest with myself (and with you), I wasn't looking for God’s guidance or his peace about the situation. I was only looking for a way to get what I wanted. 

My prayers didn't come from a scared child seeking comfort in the arms of her refuge. They didn't come from a confused daughter asking for peace enough to trust her Savior through it all. No, the prayers came from a selfish child asking God to do what she wanted so that she would be happy.

I had made happiness to be a destination, forgetting where it is truly found: in God.

I had allowed the things of this world to steal away my heart, and I was trying to find my happiness there. I believed that pursuing and accomplishing my dreams would satisfy my heart; but I couldn't have been more wrong.

God gives us dreams. He gives us our passions and desires. Dreaming and having goals isn't wrong. We find ourselves stumbling not when we dream, but when we make those dreams the sources of our joy.

I'm not saying don't dream. I'm saying don't let your dreams control your delight in life.

The moment we make someone or something other than God the direct source of our happiness, we will find ourselves let down, disappointed, and left wanting.

Nothing in my life deserves to be the foundation of my happiness, and none else can wholly captivate me like God. No relationship, destination, career, vacation, or success will ever bring me the joy found in Jesus. I do experience God’s love and joy through these things, but it should never be solely through them.

I firmly believe God wants me to enjoy life; he has given me a number of blessings to prove this to be true. However, I also firmly believe that he wants me to enjoy him, first and foremost. When I allow God to be the source of my joy, I have the freedom to experience happiness in other aspects of my life, without letting them define it.  

My happiness should be dependent on God, not on my circumstances. And when my circumstances don’t define my happiness, I find it a lot easier to enjoy all of them.

Psalm 37:4 – Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.