Day 2741 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 12:3 NIV

I've noticed another alarming trend that seems to impact all of us. It’s that we tend to view happiness as something to be found rather than a choice to be made. I was thinking about this the other night, and what I'm absolutely sure of is that happiness is a choice. The problem is that we rarely remember that we can make that choice. Instead, we usually just allow our circumstances, our feelings, our complaints to make our choice for us. And when things like that get to do the deciding, well, I can all but guarantee that happiness will not be the outcome that’s reached.

What I've found in all of my studying of humanity and nit-picking my own life and the choices made within is that everyone wastes so much time looking for happiness as if it can be found in a certain place, a certain thing, a certain outcome. We live as if happiness is hiding somewhere around us and we have to go on playing this game of hide and seek with it until we've tracked it down. We pretend that joy is found in some material thing or in some perfect outcome or in reaching our every goal. And so we set off looking in everything that catches our eye and walking down every road in this world until we hopefully stumble upon the happiness that seems so elusive.

Never once do we stop to wonder if finding happiness is truly nothing more than making a decision to be happy for what we’ve been given in this opportunity to live these lives filled with all the blessings we’ve been given and to stop allowing our circumstances or our belongings or our feelings to keep us looking around us rather than within us. We just keep looking to some external source that can hopefully make us happy so that we don’t have to make the conscious effort to choose to be happy.

Perhaps it's found in getting a raise or a more prestigious title at work. So we work harder, devote more time to proving our interest in and value to the company in which we work. And the rest of our lives is relegated to the back burner while we make our career success our focus. Or maybe happiness is found in that shiny new car that looks really cool and drives really fast. So we set our minds on doing whatever needs to be done in order to obtain that rad ride. And things like our relationships and our faith become less important as they’re simply not able to offer us the excitement we’ve placed in a new set of wheels.

Maybe happiness is found in having a gazillion friends who all hang on our every word and treat us like royalty and shower us with approval and appreciation. So we set our hearts to learning and becoming whatever it is that will bring us that kind of social success. And our Savior fades from the throne because we’ve bought this idea that our peers have the ability to define our worth and their approval therefore becomes more meaningful than remembering what we’ve already been given in Christ because we’re just more accustomed to how the world works.

Maybe happiness is in another place where there aren't reminders of the mistakes we've made or how great the good old days used to be. So we rip up our roots and take off in search of a different place to plant ourselves so that we can start over and leave the past behind us. And in the process, we throw out everything that we’ve tried and leaned on in search of something else that will hopefully do better for us, and maybe our attempt to give Christ a chance is one of those things left behind as it never really took hold in our hearts.

Or happiness may be found in a perfect relationship that includes the ole American dream of 2.5 kids, a fluffy puppy, white picket fence, 3 car garage, walk-out basement, in-ground pool, and sporty yet sleek mini-van for those weekend soccer games. So we set out in search of someone who can come along side us and fill the holes we want filled so we can begin building the foundation that will uphold that lavish ideal. And we allow ourselves to forget that Jesus is the only One who’s able to fill our hearts, heal our lives, and form a foundation solid enough to build anything that lasts.

But again, all of those potential possibilities are reliant upon the idea that happiness is concealed within something or someone or some place around us. However, the reality is that happiness is a choice that has to be made inside of us rather than found outside of us. Happiness is a daily decision to see the best in whatever our lives hold at the moment. It's a constant effort to keep our heads above the anger and frustration and disappointment that so many of us tend to lean toward. It's a personal choice to fix our minds on simply being happy. Rather than being hidden in some material possession or worldly acclaim or social status, it's actually hidden in things like contentment, gratitude, and an awareness of the undeserved blessings we've been given.

Happiness isn't hidden in this world, it's hidden in our hearts. And it's our mission to choose to let ourselves see that we've been given every reason to rejoice, to be thankful, to be content, to be excited, to be at peace. It's on us to allow joy to flow from our hearts rather than keeping it locked inside while trying to convince ourselves that we need some outside source to bring happiness to us because we've decided to buy this lie that happiness is only found in a perfect life filled with everything our hearts have learned to desire.

Friends, as this verse in Isaiah reminds us, joy is found within our faith. It's found in realizing that we've been set free. It's in knowing that we are saved, forgiven, rescued, redeemed, and able to walk through an open door of mercy and grace that leads to eternal life. Looking anywhere other than to the joy within our hearts that the Holy Spirit has planted within us is a truly sad and losing pursuit. We cannot find anything in this world that can bring us what Christ has already given us. Not even close. And yet we look. We try. We search. We keep ignoring the power of our faith and continue hunting for something or someone else to bring us what we don't realize we already have.

Every morning we get to open our eyes, toss up a thankful prayer for another day to experience life, and lower our hearts into the well of salvation where once again we realize the gravity of what's been done to bring us freedom and forgiveness and a chance at eternal peace in Heaven, and that that gift was bought with a kind of love that is more powerful than whatever we may think or feel or want or fear. That's where happiness is. Not in this world but in His Word. Not in some knick-knack but in the Holy Spirit. Not in a perfect life but in realizing our lives have been perfected in Christ and that because of Him we have a most glorious hope of a forever we can't begin to imagine.

I pray that we all stop seeing happiness as something to be found and realize that it's as close as choosing to set our minds on things above rather than on things down here. Our circumstances cannot dictate our joy when our joy is found in trusting God's will. Our possessions cannot dictate our joy when we've began storing up treasures in Heaven. This world cannot dictate our joy because through Christ's redemption we are no longer citizens of this place, we're just foreigners passing through on our way home.

Make the choice today to be happy. Not because you have everything you want or because life is going perfectly at the moment. But just because we have the opportunity to choose joy over sadness, peace over anger, gratitude over want, and humility over arrogance. None of this is about what we can find in this life, this place, or those around us. It's all about what has been done for us by a perfect Savior, a little bit of wood, and a whole lot of love. When we remember that story, that gift, that Gospel, we just might finally realize that we need nothing else to bring us joy and happiness.

We just might realize that the King of joy and happiness died to live within our hearts, and all we need to do is remember He's there.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold