Aug 2, 2026 · 35 min · 11 segments
What if the pursuit of happiness is leaving you feeling more empty instead of more fulfilled? Why do we keep chasing happiness, yet still feel like something is missing? Jesus invites us to see life…
Clayton BellHostKellyGuest
Uh, one of the questions I will not ask you, though, but I do wanna ask you now rhetorically to start off the message is, are you happy? Have you ever been asked that question before? Have you- how many of you have ever asked somebody else that question before? I mean, that- it's like the number one, it feels like the number one question that becomes the guiding line in almost every decision of whether or not we should or should do something.
Should I stay in this relationship? Well, does it make you happy? Should I get this job or not, or should I leave this job? Well, does it make you happy? Did you go on vacation? Was it a good vacation? Well, did it make you happy? And over and over again.
So when I think about it, I start asking myself then, am, am I happy? Am, am I happy enough? And then every time, I don't know if you're like this, but every time I wonder if I'm happy, I end up less happy than when I started.
Well, that's not going good right there." And over and over again, I keep thinking about all the things that are not there.
Because when we ask each other, "Are we happy?" We never define what happiness is.
We just know we need to be pursuing it at all costs, because that's the most important thing.
And no matter how many, how much lightness or easiness or satisfactory elements of our life are present, we then always think about what could have been and what could have been better.
'Cause there's always stuff going on that is not happy inducing, right? I mean, if I was like, "Hey, anything going wrong?" You're like, "S- s- settle down." You know, like [laughs] uh, how much time do you have? You know, like, what, what's going on? I, I have a chance to be able to talk with you about all these things, 'cause we keep pursuing happiness, though we never know if we've got it, and we never think we have enough of it once we start thinking about it.
Statistically, we are no happier as a society than we were 40 years ago when people first started pursuing happiness.
Actually, some statistics will say we're actually less happy than we were 40 years ago when we started pursuing it.
So maybe, maybe the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself, but this constant never-ending pursuit of happiness is, is just a scheme of the enemy to get us unfocused.
As, as the kids may say, I don't know if I said this right, it's, it's just, it's a psyop or it's an op.
If there, there's something over here that you think you should be focusing on, or it's a game of three card Monte to keep us focused on the pursuit of happiness rather than being focused on the thing that Jesus said we were actually supposed to be focused on.
We're not supposed to be focused on the pursuit of happiness, but on the pursuit of the harvest.
Uh, one of the questions I will not ask you, though, but I do wanna ask you now rhetorically to start off the message is, are you happy? Have you ever been asked that question before? Have you- how many of you have ever asked somebody else that question before? I mean, that- it's like the number one, it feels like the number one question that becomes the guiding line in almost every decision of whether or not we should or should do something.
Should I stay in this relationship? Well, does it make you happy? Should I get this job or not, or should I leave this job? Well, does it make you happy? Did you go on vacation? Was it a good vacation? Well, did it make you happy? And over and over again.
So when I think about it, I start asking myself then, am, am I happy? Am, am I happy enough? And then every time, I don't know if you're like this, but every time I wonder if I'm happy, I end up less happy than when I started.
Well, that's not going good right there." And over and over again, I keep thinking about all the things that are not there.
Because when we ask each other, "Are we happy?" We never define what happiness is.
We just know we need to be pursuing it at all costs, because that's the most important thing.
And no matter how many, how much lightness or easiness or satisfactory elements of our life are present, we then always think about what could have been and what could have been better.
'Cause there's always stuff going on that is not happy inducing, right? I mean, if I was like, "Hey, anything going wrong?" You're like, "S- s- settle down." You know, like [laughs] uh, how much time do you have? You know, like, what, what's going on? I, I have a chance to be able to talk with you about all these things, 'cause we keep pursuing happiness, though we never know if we've got it, and we never think we have enough of it once we start thinking about it.
Statistically, we are no happier as a society than we were 40 years ago when people first started pursuing happiness.
Actually, some statistics will say we're actually less happy than we were 40 years ago when we started pursuing it.
So maybe, maybe the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself, but this constant never-ending pursuit of happiness is, is just a scheme of the enemy to get us unfocused.
As, as the kids may say, I don't know if I said this right, it's, it's just, it's a psyop or it's an op.
If there, there's something over here that you think you should be focusing on, or it's a game of three card Monte to keep us focused on the pursuit of happiness rather than being focused on the thing that Jesus said we were actually supposed to be focused on.
We're not supposed to be focused on the pursuit of happiness, but on the pursuit of the harvest.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
