Christians Are Supposed to Be Happy… So Why Aren’t I?

The ache that might actually be pointing you home.

The Forbidden Question

I still remember the night that question flashed onto the screen during a youth group Q&A. We let students submit things anonymously, mostly because nobody under twenty wants to raise a hand and risk looking one degree too vulnerable.

So questions flowed in through the system.

Silly ones. Odd ones. The usual curiosities.

Then suddenly this one appeared like a flare cutting through fog.

“I’ve been following Jesus for a while now, but I’m not happy. What do I do now?”

I felt it hit me before I even finished reading it. My brain whispered something like, “Oh. This is one of those forbidden questions. The ones all us church kids pretend we have never thought about.”

Because you know the script.

Christians are happy. Christians are joyful.

Christians walk around charged with the joy of the Lord like they’re powered by some secret mystical battery pack.

And if you ever feel the ache, the longing, the quiet sadness that sits inside your chest like an old roommate who refuses to move out, you start to panic.

You assume something must be wrong with you.

Or if not you, then God Himself.

After all, is he not supposed to be the fountain of joy, the source of delight, the one who satisfies the soul?

As I stared at that anonymous question glowing on the screen, I realized that this student had simply typed out loud what many of us carry in silence.

And if they had the courage to ask it, I am certain a few of you reading this have asked it too.

Let me start by saying this: you’re not alone.

Not even close.

You are not strange for wondering why church and discipleship have not produced the emotional life you were taught to expect.

You are not broken for feeling that particular ache.

In fact, the ache itself might be trying to teach you something far truer than the plastic version of Christianity many of you inherited.

And we need to talk about that.

The Boat and the Storm

Let me tell you exactly what I told those kids that night when I stood on that stage: I want you to Imagine a boat.

Not some gleaming yacht with polished rails. Picture something small and sturdy. Something that creaks when you sit in it and rocks with every whim of the water.

Picture a boat that seems aware of its limitations.

Now imagine this boat resting on a calm sea.

The sky is clear. The sun is warm in that way that makes you believe, for a fleeting moment, that the world is more orderly than you feared.

And in this peaceful scene, the boat glides with a quiet confidence.

Everything feels steady. Everything feels right.

So far so good.

But suddenly… the wind shifts

Suddenly clouds form into heavy oppressive walls.

Suddenly the waves begin to rise, as if summoned from the deep by some old sea monster.

Suddenly that same boat that floated so gracefully now lurches, dips, groans.

Your knuckles whiten around the oars.

Your breath shortens.

The water darkens and climbs.

You begin to lose all hope.

Now, you may ask… “what does the boat represent?”

I will tell you: this little boat is your happiness.

Your mood. Your emotional equilibrium.

And I choose a boat purposefully, because your happiness, like a boat, is beautiful when the waters are friendly… and nearly impossible to control when they are not.

Have you noticed this in your own life?

How your sense of whether or not you are ok drifts with even the slightest change of weather? How your hopes rise on clear mornings and collapse at the first hint of storm?

I certainly have.

One difficult conversation, one piece of bad news, one unexpected bill, one old wound tugged open, and my little happiness boat starts to sway and tremble.

Perhaps you know this feeling too.

Which brings us to the question beneath all the questions: If your well-being is as fragile as wood and nails tossed upon the sea, what do you cling to when the real storm actually arrives?

The Light On The Rocks

Now… imagine something else.

Far off in the distance is a towering lighthouse.

It stands on a crag of ancient stone, waves smashing against it with all the fury the sea can muster… yet, it does not move. It does not tremble.

Its light turns slow and steady, cutting through the storm with that stubborn glow that says: I am here. I am not going anywhere.

Unlike the boat, the lighthouse cannot be defeated by the storm… and yet, the lighthouse does not silence the storm.

It does something stranger.

It does not make the storm go away the way you might wish it would… rather, it steadies and bolsters your courage within the storm.

It reminds you that the home you long for is real, even if you cannot see it yet.

It tells you that you are not adrift.

And if you keep your eyes fixed on that turning circle of light, your shaking hands grow a little less shaky, and your boat, though still tossed about, begins to find its bearing.

You may ask, What does the lighthouse represent?

Again, I will tell you. It is joy.

Not mere happiness, which is as fickle as a weather pattern, but joy, which is a landmark.

Happiness floats. Joy stands.

Happiness jumps when the waves behave.

Joy keeps shining when they do not.

This, my friends, is why we desperately need the lighthouse of joy.

For life, as all of us already well know, is not a cruise on a quiet lake. Life is a long voyage marked by both gentle dawns and violent nights.

There are days when you feel like you are gliding, and there are days when the bottom of the boat seems to drop out from under you.

The storms come without asking permission. They do not schedule themselves politely around your plans or your spiritual formation routines.

So what do you do if you have been following Jesus and you are not happy? What do you do when your boat is taking on water and you were raised to believe that Christians never sink? You stop asking the storm to behave, and you start looking for the lighthouse.

You stop treating happiness as the proof of God’s presence, and you start learning the strange and beautiful truth that hope and joy do not depend on calm seas. They depend on something eternal. Something unshakable.

Someone who loves you with the kind of patience that outlasts every wave that ever dared to rise against you.

I believe that once you see that light, really see it, you begin to understand something that modern faith rarely takes the time to say: God never promised us endless sunshine. He promised us himself.

And in the end, that promise proves to be the only thing that keeps us from drifting into the dark despair of the storm.

The One Who Bears the Light

And that brings us to Jesus.

He is the turning point in every real answer to every real ache. Which is why we must speak plainly here. He never promised us happiness.

He never wrapped discipleship in glitter or assured us that obedience would feel like eternal summer. Quite the opposite.

He told us the truth in a sentence that still sobers me every time I read it.

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

Trouble is not a failure of faith. Trouble is the setting in which faith lives. Yet notice what Jesus does in that moment. He does not end with trouble. He ends with himself. He takes the whole world with all its storms and shadows and says, I have overcome that. Stay close to me.

And this is where the metaphor of the lighthouse comes roaring back into view.

The true lighthouse is not comfort. It is not a feeling. It is not even optimism.

The true lighthouse is a person. Jesus, the Light of the world, is the beam that cuts through every night of the soul and points us home. Every gift he gives, including joy, flows from who he is.

Now, I can already hear a few of your questions as you read this.

You might be thinking…

“If Jesus is my joy, why am I still so sad?”

I understand that question far more than I wish I did.

I am no stranger to sorrow. These last few years have brought more darkness and confusion than any season I have ever lived through. Layoffs, betrayals, a miscarriage, financial instability, a loss of clarity around my vocational work, and a desire to keep my scrappy ministry and family afloat in the midst of one of the most challenging economies in my lifetime has thrown my life into a constant state of storminess.

I do not wake up each morning with a choir of angels singing in my kitchen. I do not sit down with my Bible and instantly feel washed in a warm glow of peace that causes me to say, “Ah, yes, the joy of the Lord has floated down the mountain and graced me like the morning dew!”

Some days, joy must be hunted for, like a shy animal hiding in the trees. And some days, I am simply too tired to hunt.

Which is why this next part matters: Christian joy is not the product of perfect mental technique. It is not a reward for doing your spiritual homework. It is not mindfulness with a Jesus sticker slapped on top.

Joy is mystical. Joy is supernatural. Joy is a fruit that only grows where the Holy Spirit has planted himself. That means your sadness does not disqualify you from the life of Christ. It is the very soil into which God often sows his deepest hope.

Another question you may be asking: If joy is connected to Jesus, then why does it sometimes feel so far away?

To this I offer not a theory, but a direction.

Joy feels far when the storm feels near. Which is exactly why Scripture does not tell you to chase the feeling of happiness. It tells you to look to Jesus.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Look to him. Not to your boat. Not to the waves. Not to the voice that says your sadness must mean you are failing at faith. Look to the lighthouse that refuses to go out no matter how fierce the night becomes.

Another question: “But what if I cannot feel joy at all?”

Then hold onto hope. Joy is the warmth of the fire. Hope is the knowing that the fire is real even when you cannot feel its heat. And both are rooted in the same truth. This world with all its pain is not the end.

The lighthouse is not pointing you back to shore because the storm will suddenly disappear. It is pointing you toward a new world. The world Jesus is preparing. The world where sorrow will not follow you and death will not speak again.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Revelation 21:4

Every harsh wave, every bitter season, every grief that wears your name will one day find its end in him.

That is the crescendo.

That is where your story is going.

Where to Look When the Waves Rise

So what do you do now?

I’ll end with one final word on lighthouses.

Lighthouses are beautiful from a distance. They’re romantic. They make for excellent postcards and inspirational Instagram posts. But if you’ve ever stood at the base of a real lighthouse during a real storm, you know something the tourists don’t: it’s still terrifying.

The waves still crash. The wind still howls. The salt spray still stings your eyes until you can barely see. And that beam of light cutting through the darkness? It doesn’t make the rocks any less sharp or the water any less cold. It just tells you the truth about where you are and which direction leads home.

That’s what joy does.

It doesn’t remove you from the storm. It doesn’t promise that following Jesus will feel like a warm bath of spiritual comfort. It simply refuses to let you believe the lie that the storm is all there is.

Your unhappiness is not evidence that you’re doing Christianity wrong. Your unhappiness might actually be evidence that you’re waking up to how broken the world really is, how far we are from home, how much we were made for something more than this.

The ache you feel just might be homesickness.

And homesickness only exists because home is real.

C.S. Lewis said it better than I ever could: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

So stop apologizing for not being happy enough. Stop treating your sadness like a spiritual disease that needs to be cured by better quiet times or more vigorous worship music.

Start asking whether that sadness might actually be your soul telling you the truth: this world is not enough, and it was never meant to be.

The question isn’t “Why am I not happy?”

The question is “Where am I looking?”

Are you looking at your boat, expecting it to stay steady in waters that were never designed to be calm? Or are you looking at the lighthouse, learning to live in the tension between the storm you’re in and the shore you’re heading toward?

Jesus never promised you happiness. He promised you himself. And if you keep your eyes on him, if you let that light fall across your face even when you cannot feel its warmth, something strange starts to happen.

You don’t stop feeling sad. But you stop being afraid of the sadness.

You don’t stop being tossed by the waves.

But you stop believing the waves will have the final word.

You start to discover that joy isn’t the absence of sorrow. Joy is the stubborn insistence that sorrow is not the end of the story. Joy is the defiant act of believing that the one who made you loves you, knows you, and will not let the storm run you aground.

That’s the lighthouse.

That’s Jesus.

And He’s not going anywhere.

He’s with you.

Take heart, and let the joy be your anchor in the storm.

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If this work has fed you, challenged you, or pushed you closer to Jesus, then I need your help!

I’m Aaron, a former long-time church staff pastor now doing ministry out in the wild. Since 2018, I’ve been building GoodLion Ministries to help young adults follow Jesus deeply in a post-modern, post-Christian age that pulls them in a thousand directions.

On Sunday evenings, I lead the GoodLion School of Discipleship, a multi-year formation program where young adults wrestle with Scripture, ask hard questions, and build a faith that can handle doubt and chaos. Through this work, I watch students move from confusion to clarity, from fear to faithfulness, from being spiritually adrift to knowing how to walk with Jesus in real life.

I also write here on Substack, mentor young leaders, and create resources for people who want substance over hype.

Our mission is simple: We believe in Jesus, the King who is not safe but is very good. We’re here for the doubters, the deconstructors, the burnt-out ministers, the church kids haunted by legalism, and anyone tired of shallow faith.

Here’s the reality: I’m bivocational. For years, I’ve supported my family through freelance work while building this ministry in every spare hour I can find. My goal is to transition to doing this work full time so I can expand the School, write more, travel to teach, raise up more leaders, and serve every single person who need what GoodLion offers.

This is my life’s work. For nearly 20 years, I’ve been helping Gen Z learn to think deeply, wrestle honestly, and follow Jesus in a world that tries to pull them apart.

If you believe this work matters, I invite you to partner with me! This is not a side hustle for me. This is a mission. Even $10/month helps me teach more, write more, and disciple more young adults who genuinely need it.

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Thank you for walking with me.

– Aaron

Links

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🎓 GoodLion School of Discipleship

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