When I was young, I convinced myself that if I could just get out of my parents’ house, I could be happy. Things would be less chaotic. Safer.
When I got out of my parents’ house, I convinced myself that if I could do super well in my college classes, I’d be happy when I get a better job. Things would be less challenging. Stable.
When I got work, I justified 90-hour workweeks with the thought of building the infrastructure necessary to not work. I ignored how sick I got with the usual cat poster mantra, telling myself to hang in there because God would want me to be happy.
Have you used that line to justify your own behavior?
Maybe you stole or cheated on a partner. Maybe you just ran away from something hard or scary.
I had to learn that it’s not that God doesn’t want us to be happy — He absolutely does. But as Craig Groeshel has cleanly preached, God’s first priority actually isn’t our happiness. It’s our holiness.
More than anything, God wants us to be sanctified and brought closer to the image of Who He is. This typically means shifting our character and level of discernment away from our ego and the world.
But when we seek holiness in this way, something miraculous happens. The happiness we fought so hard for — which is only a momentary pleasure — becomes replaced with joy — which is an eternal state of elevation within deep peace. This joy is a gift and a reflection of God’s nature.
This means happiness or joy is not a goal to seek. It never has been. It’s a natural consequence that comes from submitting to the Lord.
But what’s even better is that, when we live in holiness, we then gift God joy back. He delights in our obedience and love as we trust in His care and provision, and instead of transaction, there’s honest, reciprocal relationship.
Don’t dismiss that or pass over that too quickly, because there’s responsibility for us in it. Reciprocal relationship means reciprocal consideration of one another.
“God would want me to be happy.”
But what do you want God to feel because of you?
This content will be syndicated to faithfulontheclock.com May 13, 2026.
