Your Husband Can’t Make You Happy

That’s because happiness is based on circumstances. Yet circumstances are the one part of our lives over which we have virtually no control. Even if “the pursuit of happiness” gives the impression of lacing up those
running shoes and training for a marathon, it’s actually quite a passive endeavor.

Since you can’t control circumstances, pursuing happiness means constantly scanning your surroundings to see if they make you happy. And as soon as you start doing that, you’ll find all the reasons why your circumstances don’t measure up.

God never intended us to be passive. He made us to actively engage this world and to shine in it. So perhaps we need another route to happiness in marriage—one that is far more likely to get us to the finish line. And it starts not with fixing our husbands but with fixing our own hearts.

I think of happiness as quite distinct from joy or contentment. Joy looks upward, contentment looks inward, and happiness looks outward. Joy says, “How great is our God!” Contentment says, “It is well with my soul.” And happiness says, “All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.” But you can’t appreciate what’s outside of you until you’re at peace with what’s inside. And that requires focusing on God first.