Pursuit of Happiness

I was reading this morning from the life of Edward Payson, a 19th century minister from New England, who suffered all his life and died at an early age of 44 years old. I wanted to share an especially poignant quote from him near the end of his life. Here he speaks about where our true happiness lies as Christians.

"Christians might avoid much trouble and inconvenience, if they would only believe what they profess [to believe]: that God is able to make them happy without anything else...To mention my own case--God has been depriving me of one blessing after another; but as every one was removed, he has come in and filled up the place; and now, when I am a cripple, and not able to move, I am happier than I was in all my life before, or ever expect to be."

Whoa!

We live in a world that exalts the pursuit of happiness. Each of us is searching frantically and usually with reckless abandon for happiness. We do not realize that true and lasting happiness can and only will be found in Christ. We are searching for it in health, in perpetual youth, in exercise, in money, in vacations, in relationships, in sports, in jobs. As C.S. Lewis has reminded us, we do not realize that God has something far better in store for us than these finite things can ever offer: We are like children wanting to go on making mud pies in a slum when God has planned for us a holiday by the sea. He has made us for Himself, and we will never ultimately be "happy" with anything else.