The Search For True Happiness

The Search for True Happiness

by Pastor Jim May

In today’s church, more than ever before, it is so easy to go after things that we believe will bring true happiness. But what we often find after we have obtained what we sought after is most often far less than what we thought it would be and then we find that happiness is a fleeting thing.

True happiness and joy in life is not found in the possessions we have or the in the gusto that we can get out of living. What little enjoyment, what little happiness, and what little satisfaction we get out of the things of the world are very short-lived, and more often than not, those very same things become a millstone around our neck to weigh us down.

The words of Jesus ring loud and true when he says in Matthew 10:39, "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

The Search for true happiness always begins in the mind of man. We are bombarded with a constant barrage of messages coming from the radio, the TV or from friends, coworkers and relatives. These messages are like an open ended pipeline that empty into your mind a flood of information and thoughts that become the seed of temptation to chase after them.

Let me give you some examples:

Not long ago, there was a certain movie that was advertised on TV that was based upon the historical setting of the U. S. Civil War. Since I have always loved to read and watch stories of this time period, I determined to get a copy of this movie and to watch it. Like so many other people, I bought the DVD without ever having seen the movie first. Can I tell you that there was very little historical information in that film? Can I also tell you that if I had known what was in that movie that I would never have purchased it?

Just like you, I fell prey to the advertisement in my search for entertainment that would bring a moment of enjoyment, only to discover that the thing I wanted was a danger to my soul.

Then there are those whose search for happiness is in the bottle at the local bar. You can see them, if you care to look, every afternoon when they get off work. They leave the job and stop off for “Happy Hour” at their favorite watering hole. We all know that the “happiness” that comes in the bottle is not real and very fleeting. I don’t doubt that the happiness they bring only lasts for an hour.

That man or woman who indulges in alcohol or drugs or any such things that are touted to produce an artificial high and a false happiness, are in reality, a deadly potion for the destruction of the true happiness and joy in life. Those kinds of things create within us a false sense of joy that is soon shattered when we come to the realization of what they have done to our homes and lives.

How many homes and marriages have been utterly destroyed as a result of these “Happy Hour” parties? How many children are living in broken homes, without mom or dad, and maybe going to bed hungry every night while mom or dad, or both, are searching for themselves and seeking after the satisfaction that one more drink or one more fix can give to the them?

But the search for happiness and the fulfillment in you life doesn’t always have to come in the form of alcohol or drugs. People search for happiness in multitudes of ways.

Satan loves to get men and women in playing games. It all seems so innocent at first. Maybe just a phone call to a long lost friend from your school days, or maybe just a short visit with a former spouse, or a member of the old gang at school.

The same temptation that Satan brought to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, so long ago, is just as powerful as it was the first time he used it.

Genesis 3:1-7, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."