In 2006, Will Smith starred in a real-life movie called The Pursuit of Happyness. It tells the story of Chris Gardner, an inventor and dreamer, with a dream to make it big one day. In his pursuit of a better life, Chris' wife leaves him, and he is left to raise their child alone. With one bad life circumstance after another, he finds himself homeless yet not hopeless.

He somehow managed to get an internship at a prestigious brokerage firm. The movie ends with a heartwarming moment when Chris is called into a boardroom on the last day of his internship. In this final scene, with Chris’ heart pounding and his eyes welling up with tears, he is told he is being offered a full-time job. In this climactic scene, his hopes and dreams are fulfilled. The movie ends as he walks down the street and says, "This part of my life..this little part is called happiness."

As a child of God, how do you pursue happiness? Maybe your pursuits are not like Chris Gardner's, but we all have hopes and dreams. Dreams of success, dreams of having a family, and dreams of raising healthy, godly children. But what happens when things just don't go the way we plan? What happens when we are faced with unmet expectations, hardship, suffering, and disappointment?

If we are honest, when life doesn't go our way, many times we are left wondering... does God even care? The question of whether God cares about my happiness is one that we've likely all wrestled with at some point in our Christian journey. In other words, is God intimately involved in the micro things of my life or just the macro—the little day-to-day things, or just the big things like my salvation?

In the gospel of Mark, we read the story of how the disciples were in a boat, and a great storm arose. Jesus is sleeping in the midst of the chaos, and the disciples wake him and say, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" (Mark 4:38). They don't say, “Jesus, wake up and use your supernatural powers!” They instead ask, “Jesus, don't you care about what's happening in my life?”

Jesus awakes, calms the storm, and tells them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" (Mark 4:40). But what exactly should we place our faith in when met with life's difficult moments?

A careful reading of the Bible will lead you to two things your faith should be placed in under any circumstance or season of life: the sovereignty and goodness of God. Many times, we could fall into the trap of thinking that God simply allows things to happen in our lives. God doesn't just allow things; He ordains them.

After being thrown into a pit by his brothers and sold into slavery, Joseph reunites with them years later and tells them, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." Joseph understood that God was ultimately ordaining all the steps of his life, even the painful and uncertain ones. We place our faith not just in His sovereignty but also in His goodness.

We often quote Romans 8:28 that says "all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose", yet we fail to read the following verse, which explains why. All things work together for our good because we are being made into the image of Jesus. All the good things, bad things, and uncertain things are making us more and more like our Lord and Savior.

Just like Chris Gardner ends by saying, "This part of my life..this little part," we, too, in light of eternity, will say the same thing one day. Are you living each moment trusting in His sovereignty and goodness, or are you living them in uncertainty? My hope is that you are trusting God, which then produces the fruit of joy, peace, and thanksgiving in your life.