I watched part of The Pursuit of Happyness last night at our weekly small group, and it got me thinking of the whole concept of “happyness” and what it means to have that odd mixture of joy, peace, passion, and wholeness. One of the questions our group leader asked was, can we ever truly be happy? Or is it just something we spend our whole lives pursuing only to experience fleeting moments that vanish almost before they’ve begun?

One thing I’ve definitely discovered which turns a lot of pop culture on its head: love does not make you happy. OK, before you get the wrong impression, let me clarify: the emotions and expressions of love are incredible and definitely contribute to happiness. However, those feelings aren’t a given. We all have down days. We get tired. We get sick. We get frustrated with circumstances. People hurt us or neglect us. We feel misunderstood. Things just “go wrong”. We can’t expect to find some kind of nirvana where “love” makes everything great.

And for the Christians out there, I have to tell you something which turns a lot of pop religion on its head — God’s love can’t always be apprehended. Sometimes the depth of His love for me is staggering, and I know how much He cares for me. But sometimes I feel completely dry, empty, and void, and when I try to reach out to Him I get nothing but silence.

So what’s the answer? What do we do when we hit rock bottom? How are we supposed to handle ourselves when everything seems out of whack and we feel so…alone?

I think the answer can be found in the Bible, and it’s called faith. Yes, go ahead, roll your eyes, label me as another one of these woolly-headed faith nutters, but hear me out. By faith I do not mean accenting to certain intellectual propositions for which there is little evidence. I mean the first meaning I read in my dictionary:

Faith (noun): 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something

To be truly happy, we must believe in something greater than ourselves. I find a very direct correlation between my faith level and my propensity to depression. I must maintain my ability to live by faith every day or my spirit will whither. As a Christian, my faith starts at the cross. I believe that Jesus is the ultimate beginning and end of the universe and my reality, and that everything I need to live an eternally successful and prosperous life (and I mean that in a spiritual sense, not materialistic) can only be found in Him. But my faith doesn’t end there. I also need to have faith in myself. In some of my darkest moments, I have discovered that God believes in me more than I believe in myself! I mean, if my Father in Heaven is cheering me on and rooting for me, then why am I holed up in a cave so to speak? (Hey now, Elijah had some moments of self-doubt and fear too! Read I Kings 19:9.)

But…there’s one more thing! I need to have faith in other people. I need to trust. I am convinced that without being able to give trust freely to people who are trustworthy, you can never achieve lasting happiness. There are certainly a lot of human beings who have done despicable things. Perhaps you have been seriously abused in the past and find it hard to trust anyone now. But if you want to find that sense of prosperity of soul and joy one more, you must begin to open your heart again. A closed heart is a dead heart. Happiness is the abundant life that Jesus talks about in John 10:8, and that requires walking the path of faith and trust.

I have realized something in the past few months. Relationships can bring out a lot of things in you, and some of them are pretty ugly. I have realized that I don’t trust the future. I’m pretty good at believing in people in terms of not concluding they have malicious intent towards me, but when it comes to believing that all will be well down the road, I suck at it. My level of confidence that I will continue to be loved, or understood, or treated well, or that I will be as happy as I am now is not high. Somewhere inside of me is an underlying dread that something bad will happen and it’ll all be over. This surfaces when I reach bumpy waters — instead of thinking the good times are the true reality and troubles will pass soon, I think that the good times are an anomaly and the hardships and despair are the real McCoy.

This is backwards thinking! My eternal destination is with God in Heaven! No matter how difficult things get, it is certain that “one day” I will be truly happy. I need never lose hope or let my faith wither. God is in control, and I am not — thank God!

I want to reach the point where I can weather the storm because I know deep down that “peace, be still” is on the other side. This is my struggle right now. If I am secure in my vision for the future, then I can relax and enjoy the little joys and wins that happen every day. Everyone says it’s better to “live in the moment.” Well, I can’t do that if I’m always worrying about the future. Faith is the antidote to anxiety.

I’m ready to move mountains, Lord!