We’re looking for true happiness in all the wrong places.

Thomas Jefferson drafted the famous sentence, which 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.”

So why, even though it’s in our Declaration of Independence, is happiness so often like a desert mirage — maddeningly elusive? We’re all chasing it, but so often it remains just out of reach.

So, where does happiness live?

Dictionary.com describes it as “an emotional state characterized by feelings of enjoyment, pleasure and a sense that life is good.”

Happiness is normally viewed as dependent on external circumstances, and when the circumstances change for the better or worse, our sense of being happy moves in lockstep.

But suppose we’re going about our pursuit of happiness in all the wrong ways. Suppose happiness is not somewhere outside of ourselves at all.

Suppose it was where we are right now, in our heads and hearts completely independent of time, space and circumstances? We wouldn’t have to “move a muscle” to possess it.

It’s Not Where You Think

It’s no use disappearing into the pleasures of Paris, sunny beaches in the Bahamas, glorious heights of the Dolomites. Happiness doesn’t live there.

Nor does happiness live in a new home, new car, new wife or new husband. Forget about ski resorts, exclusive restaurants, jewelry, watches, clothes or a pair of new shoes.

What about retreating into the barrenness of a busy life, being a workaholic, becoming a consummate people-pleaser, accumulating more money than you will ever need?

Have you tried accolades, awards, recognition, fame, celebrity, monuments? Not that there is anything wrong with these things in themselves, but if you stop your search for inner happiness there, you will be sorely disappointed.

Blame Game

It is not uncommon for people to persuade themselves that someone or something else is in the way of their happiness. They become professional “victims,” blaming everything on their parents, childhood, the place of their birth, their race, economic conditions, authority figures, teachers, preachers, politicians, ex-wives or husbands, friends, “the system.”

How do you suppose the blame game works for them?

Many disappear into the hazy blur of drug and/or alcohol addiction. Perhaps marital affairs, divorce, remarriage, sexual pleasure.

Trouble is, they bring the “problem person” along with them into every new relationship — the problem person being THEMSELVES, including their wildly unrealistic expectations for greener grass somewhere else.

Litmus Test

Do you feel like: no one understands you, that you are alone, that your life is wasting away, that you are not attractive enough, not tall enough, not smart enough, haven’t had all “the breaks” others have?

You have fallen for the lie that life is all about the pursuit of happiness. There is no honorable escape from this dilemma, no place to run that won’t lead you right back to where you started … or, so it seems.

This is exactly where God wants you.

When all avenues of escape are closed one remains — Stop! Put down your props. Look up from your self-imposed squirrel cage into the eyes of the One who loves you infinitely more than you love yourself.

You need a settled relationship with your Creator. You were never meant to “do life” alone.

Have you ever taken a red-hot coal out of a campfire? What happens? It immediately cools down and ceases giving off heat.

The only solution is to put that coal back in the fire with the other coals and it heats back up.

God is your Source, your “heat,” and He is waiting for you to come to Him — staying out in the cold makes for a lonely vigil devoid of eternal prospects. He wants to introduce you to a yet-deeper experience — Joy.

Happiness is circumstantial and comes and goes with the breeze. Joy is positional, circumstance-neutral, and based in the immutable Word of God and His Holy Spirit.

As described in James 1:2-4: “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

How About You?

What is life all about? It is about knowing God, personally. Nothing less.

Do that, and happiness and joy get thrown in no charge, along with eternal life and an everlasting destiny in glory.

In his book, The Joyful Christian, author C.S. Lewis wisely observed, “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’; aim at Earth and you will get neither.” Interested?

Or of course, there’s always another mirage to pursue …

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