Written by Bryan Karr
In August 2025, Market Data, a leading provider of comprehensive research on niche industries, noted that the U.S. market alone represents a $12 billion industry for what is commonly called self-improvement products and services, or what we more broadly know as the self-help industry. Although this category encompasses a wide range of products and services, including motivational speakers, seminars, institutes, self-improvement books, apps, and personal coaching programs, the motivation behind consuming these goods and services remains the same: the pursuit of individual happiness.
Throughout the 20th century, we began to see a rise in this self-help industry, offering the promise of self-actualization at a reasonable cost. As human beings, we possess an innate sense that if we could simply live a little better, become a little more accomplished, act a little more ethically or morally, or become a little more righteous or holy, we might somehow discover the secret to filling the gaping hole within our hearts. It is a hole that leaves us wrestling with an existential dread that our lives might come to an end without ever having held any real meaning.
Yet behind this quest for self-actualization, what we might better describe as the process of becoming the most authentic version of ourselves, lies something deeper: the pursuit of self-salvation. By self-salvation, I mean the belief that through our own efforts we can discover a true sense of meaning and purpose for our lives. The North Star guiding this entire endeavor is happiness—a feeling we believe we can attain through our own actions and contributions to the world. This is the promise that underlies the entire self-help enterprise. But the self-help industry is nothing new. It is not something humanity has merely dreamed up over the last century. Throughout the ancient world, traveling speakers and teachers regularly made their way into public gatherings and marketplaces, offering their ideas, beliefs, and worldviews.
We see evidence of this in the New Testament. Paul addresses the influence of competing teachings in his letters, describing a world in which people were continually exposed to different ideas and philosophies. These teachers appealed to the same human desire that drives the modern self-help industry: the desire for someone to come along and tell us that if we simply live differently, make certain changes, pray to this god or that one, offer the right sacrifices, or do a little more, we might discover self-actualization, self-salvation, and a path toward lasting happiness. This is not a modern conflict because it is not a modern dilemma.
Saint Augustine, in his Confessions, meditates on this very question:
"How then am I to seek a life of happiness? Is it not mine until I can say, This is all I want? Here is happiness. I must know how to seek it. Should it be by the way of remembering, as though it were something I have forgotten, but am still aware of having forgotten? Or by thirsting for a life still strange to me, either because I have never known it, or because I have so completely forgotten that I do not even remember that I have forgotten? What is a life of happiness? Surely what everyone wants, absolutely everyone without exception. But if they all want it so badly, where did they come to know it?"
We all want a life of happiness. We all carry some preconceived notion of what that happiness should look like, and we are all searching for where it can be found. Somewhere along the way, we have forgotten the source from which true happiness flows. Yet, in a unified sense, we all share this pursuit of happiness, this longing for hope and the expectation that our lives might mean something—that all of this is not for nothing.
The apostle Paul speaks directly to this longing in his letter to the Romans:
"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."
When Paul says that creation was subjected to futility, he is describing a condition of vanity, emptiness, purposelessness, and worthlessness. It is a condition in which there is no lasting truth, value, goal, or useful end to the pursuits of our lives apart from God.
Paul speaks directly to the heart of what the self-help industry and its pursuit of self-actualization are striving to overcome. There is a futility in our lives that we feel and experience as human beings apart from God. There is something woven into the fabric of our existence that longs to be restored. We long to have a sense of meaning and purpose for who we are. And as citizens of the United States, we are willing to spend twelve billion dollars a year pursuing that very goal.
What we find in the person of Jesus Christ, however, is the free gift of grace and mercy given to us as sinners. Through Him, we are restored and redeemed, and we are given the right sense of meaning and purpose for our lives through a relationship with God the Father.
From the beginning of creation, and particularly from the beginning of the fall through the sin of Adam, humanity has been brought under this condition of futility. We have been groaning together under its weight, longing for something to restore what has been lost.
Notice, though, what Paul says: creation was subjected to futility in hope. God has subjected humanity to this condition in such a way that it ultimately points us back to Him. For whatever reason, this longing and desire for meaning and purpose has been woven into our human experience. God knows that as we pursue these things, we will ultimately be confronted with our need for Him.
We may discover this when we stumble and fall under the weight of our own authority over our lives, pursuing our own desires in ways that lead us astray. We continually long for something more. We set our sights on something, strive after it, and perhaps even achieve it, only to discover that it never fills the void within us. The very thing we believed would bring us happiness ultimately leaves us wanting more.
But God says, in effect, "Come to Me, and I will fill that void. I will give you a sense of meaning and purpose for your life that transcends all understanding."
As Christians, we have hope in this redemption. We eagerly await the fulfillment of God's promises as adopted sons and daughters of His family. This hope is grounded in the love of God, who so loved the world that He gave His only Son to die on the cross for us.
I bring all of this up in light of the Advent season that is upon us. As we enter this season, we can find particular comfort in the hope of the redemption that is to come.
Advent is a four-week period on the Christian calendar that prepares us as Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas. But Advent does more than look back to Christ's first coming. It also points us forward to His promised return, when God will fulfill His promise to bring about a new creation and establish His kingdom here on earth. Traditionally, each Sunday of the Advent season focuses on one of four central themes: hope, peace, joy, and love.
We begin the Advent season with hope because hope is more than optimism or the sense that we can somehow see how a particular set of circumstances might work out for the best in our lives. Biblical hope is a reflection of the faithfulness of God, and it is that faithfulness that gives us confidence as we look toward the future.
Hope is the ability to look forward by looking backward. It is rooted in a trust and certainty that goes beyond wishful thinking. It is not simply a wish that things might turn out well; it is a confident expectation that God will fulfill what He has promised. And so we begin with hope by reflecting on the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the great turning point between the hope we see throughout the Old Testament and the future fulfillment of God's promises through the new covenant, established in the blood of Christ. He is both the fulfillment of the hope that came before Him and the sure foundation of the hope that lies ahead.
It is through this hope that we can come to a deeper understanding of the peace, joy, and love of God—the themes we will reflect on throughout the rest of Advent. If we look at Romans 5:1–5, we see Paul outline this connection beautifully:
"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
Listen to what Paul is saying here. We have been justified by faith. And faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the ability to place our firm trust and confidence in God and His character. We hope for and long for the redemption that is to come, holding a conviction about the things we cannot yet see because we trust in His promises.
Paul then tells us that through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have peace with God. Here we see the theme of peace emerge. He goes on to say that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. In other words, through the gift of grace given to us in Christ, we can rejoice. We can have true joy because of the hope that is ours in Him. And this hope permeates every part of our lives. It is not limited to seasons of comfort or favorable circumstances. Even in the midst of suffering, which remains a reality throughout our lives, we can have assurance and endurance. We can persevere through difficult moments because of the hope we have in God's grace and the future glory He has promised us.
These things will not put us to shame. Rather, God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given to us. That is what Paul is saying here. And that is why we begin our Advent tradition with the theme of hope. The hope we have in Christ—the rock-solid, confident expectation of what God has promised to fulfill—overflows into every other aspect of our lives. It gives rise to our peace, sustains our joy, and assures us of the love of God.
