Are you trying to be happy? Should you be?

Would you say that you are happy? If so, then I am genuinely delighted – praise be to God!

Yet a deeper question presses upon us: is happiness the chief goal you are pursuing in life?

If the answer to that second question is “yes”, then, in love, I must warn you – happiness pursued for its own sake will forever elude your grasp. It is a poor master and a fleeting prize. We must set our sights higher than happiness alone.

It has long been recognised, even among the secular wise, that the unbridled pursuit of happiness is a mirage. In 2007, Australian psychotherapist Russ Harris wrote The Happiness Trap, a book built around the principle that to live a truly rich and meaningful life, one must embrace pain and difficulty, not run from them. Happiness, paradoxically, comes when it is not the thing most sought.

The Scriptures go so much further. They offer us not merely strategies for better living, but the risen Christ Himself. True happiness, Scripture teaches, is found not in chasing feelings, but in being found in Christ — rooted and grounded in Him, and walking daily with Him.

Nowhere is this more powerfully displayed than in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Written from a Roman prison cell, with chains on his wrists and uncertainty hanging over his future, Paul nevertheless overflows with joy. His circumstances were grim, yet his spirit soared. He speaks of “making my prayer with joy” (Phil.1:4), of “rejoicing that Christ is proclaimed” (1:18), of the Philippians as “my joy and crown” (4:1), and he urges his readers again and again: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (4:4). He even declares: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content … I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (4:11,13).

What is the secret of such extraordinary joy? It is not a matter of natural temperament. It is not blind optimism. Nor is it the grim self-reliance of the Stoic philosophers. It is certainly not the modern techniques of psychotherapy. It is, quite simply, Christ. Christ was everything to Paul. Since that day on the Damascus road when he first encountered the risen Lord, Paul’s life had been entirely reoriented around Him. “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (1:21), he could say with full conviction.

Whether life or death, freedom or imprisonment, honour or disgrace – all these things had become secondary. Paul’s heart was captivated by “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (3:8). In Christ, he found a joy the world could neither give nor take away.

The Puritan Thomas Brooks (1608–80) captured this beautifully when he wrote: “Holiness is happiness in the bud, and happiness is holiness at the full. Happiness is nothing but the quintessence of holiness.”

So shall we pursue happiness? In a sense, yes – but let us understand it rightly. If we aim first at happiness, we shall miss both happiness and holiness. But if we seek after holiness – if we desire above all to walk closely with Christ in purity, obedience, and love – then happiness will come as the fragrant fruit of that holy life.

This is not the happiness of fleeting emotions, but the deep and lasting joy of a soul in communion with its Saviour. For Christ has not only redeemed us from the guilt of sin; He is daily at work cleansing us from sin’s power, renewing our hearts and desires, and leading us ever onward in the paths of righteousness.

So let us not set our hearts on the shallow joys of this passing world. Let us seek Christ – seek holiness – and find, in Him, a happiness that no prison wall, no suffering, no sorrow, and no death itself can ever extinguish.