The Burden of Happiness

The United States was founded on the idea that people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I’ve always felt that I live in the best country in the world—especially after spending time in a few others. However, with the current political climate, I sometimes wonder how much longer I’ll feel that way. 

I know I’m not alone when I ponder the dramatic changes that have taken place in our nation since those words were penned in the Declaration of Independence over two hundred years ago. Our founding fathers were obviously seeking to establish a government that would complement biblical principles, but I wonder if they didn’t inadvertently contribute to our divergence from those same principles with one imperfectly chosen word. I love this country and don’t want to undo our foundation in the slightest way, which is precisely the reason I bring this up. Perhaps in order to maintain the intentions of our founding fathers, we should consider the possibility that “happiness” has a different meaning today than it did then.

The American dream is wrapped up in the idea that we want to achieve happiness and that, left to our own devices, we can. The colonies were desperate to slip out of King George III’s tyrannical grip, so it makes sense that happiness should be a tenet of the new government, but I don’t suppose the signers of the Declaration would have chosen that word if they could have imagined what its pursuit would look like a couple of centuries later. To them it would have meant the opportunity to make laws and use taxes to benefit their own communities, raise and educate their own children, and worship God however they chose. Can you imagine what they would have made of the very idea that, in order to pursue happiness, a child would be able to choose her own gender and a woman abort her own baby if it made her happy? Clearly not. The idea of happiness might have once been equated with a principled life, but it has somehow come to mean feeling good all the time—an impossibility, the pursuit of which has made us nothing less than crazy. Maybe the “pursuit of joy” would have been a better choice of words because, while joy is not completely synonymous with happiness, there can be no real happiness without it.

The good news is that joy is found in Christ. He never calls us to happiness, which can actually be quite a burden. New parents say about their baby, “Whatever he does, I just want him to be happy.” That’s quite a calling for the child before he’s even old enough to know what it means. What if he grows up to be a servant of God? Is happiness the standard in that job? If it is, I’m doing something wrong. I’m often sad because of the number of people who reject Jesus. 

People say God wants us to be happy, but maybe they’re confusing God’s call with the American dream. God calls us to joy. Happiness is experienced when our circumstances make us feel good, but the joy of the Lord is a permanent state of being when we have Christ living in us and can be present even in the worst of circumstances. I find great relief in the fact that, while I appreciate the freedom to pursue happiness, God does not expect it from me. Ecclesiastes 7 says, “Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.” True joy comes when we fellowship with Christ’s suffering. It reminds us that He is in charge and that all is well, regardless of our physical circumstances. When we experience financial problems, relationship issues, or even a worldwide health crisis, we don’t also have to face the burden of feeling happiness in the midst of the struggle. 

Maybe it’s un-American to be unhappy, but it certainly isn’t ungodly. For those of us in Christ, happiness is a byproduct of joy and comes in delightful and surprising waves like sprinkles on a cake, where joy is the whole cake and happiness is the sprinkles. If we’re able to release ourselves from the burden of the pursuit of happiness, we will certainly find it in the joy of the Lord.