Love and Happiness

When a person has everything and has access to even more, why are they still unhappy? I believe this is a question King Solomon explored and used every resource at his disposal to do so. He was not only probably the richest person that has ever lived but was also the wisest. We can take the results of his exploration into this question on very good authority. One might presume that he was driven in the depth of his soul by the thing that drives us today. We want to be as happy as we can, and more than this, we all want to be loved. It sounds so simple yet eludes so many. It is, if you think about it, an astounding reality to be living in a time when many of us have access to so much, yet the number of people who say they are unhappy with their lives is increasing. They’re unhappy with their jobs, unhappy with their marriages and relationships, and unhappy with themselves. They may feel just as Solomon stated in Ecclesiastes 1:2(NLT), “Everything is meaningless…completely meaningless!”

I’ve met a lot of people, some of them spend an awful amount of time complaining about their lives. Some of them become offended and upset over little things; they sweat the small stuff. My sisters and I often remark that if some of the people we know were forced to deal with what we did growing up…they may not have made it through. This isn’t meant to minimize anyone’s pain. Many of my friends have struggled or are struggling with deep sadness and loneliness. We all have varying levels of tolerance, some having strengths where others have weaknesses and vice versa. One of the things we must recognize with crystal clarity is that purpose sets the parameters. It determines the areas of our lives where our strengths must be increased, and our weaknesses diminished. Purpose dictates where our resolve and endurance will need to be fortified.

This is very challenging for most of us because we want to decide this for ourselves and in our own timing, but our lives don’t belong to us. 1Corinthians 6:19-20(NLT) tells us, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” God has granted us the distinct privilege to honor Him with our lives. Many of us seek to ground our happiness on something within this natural plain, but this could never be a sturdy enough foundation on which to build a meaningful existence.

Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 6:19-20 (NLT), “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” Love and happiness are the treasures that God has given us through Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of Heaven is our original place of residence and it is where these treasures must be kept. Jesus Christ has told us under no uncertain terms that trying to store treasures the wrong way and in the wrong place will leave us with feelings and situations of loss, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction. We can do it a different way, and he offers the solution..

The psalmist said in Psalm 119:35(NLT), “Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found.” The words ‘make me’ imply flexibility. You and I have free-will. We can always choose a path that we think is right, and God will not prevent us from doing so. But His desire is that we will align our free-will with His Will. When we submit ourselves to God, Jesus Christ will then guide us through our obedience to the Spirit within. You and I can’t take the lead. If the crisis we’re currently facing shows us nothing else, it demonstrates that we are not in control.

Feeling sad is incredibly uncomfortable and feeling good is everything. We have to believe that feeling good is God’s greatest desire for each of us; that He desires it more for us than we do for ourselves. He dictates the meaningfulness of life. Through Christ we can be fulfilled according to God’s Will, and there doesn’t exist for us a greater plan than His. We want so much to take the lead, but this isn’t our place. We were created to be followers of our Big Brother, Jesus Christ! Continuing to bump against the walls of our circumstances because of our own stubbornness and inflexibility is to fight against the very reason for our existence. We’re not in a position to dictate. Jesus Christ is LORD! Everything must ultimately bow to this reality.

He tells us in John 14:6(NLT), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” Jesus Christ is EVERYTHING! The more we surrender to this extraordinary and supernatural reality, the more we will experience the peace, love, and power in our lives that comes wrapped in God’s grace. The Lord knows the infinite possibilities for our lives. He has set our purpose. He knows where we’re supposed to be, when we’re supposed to be there, and He knows how to get us there. When we relinquish our lives to Jesus Christ, we will surrender to his very loving and powerful care. We’ll experience a shift in the trajectory of our lives, and our emotions and feelings will soon align with the joy that can only be found in him.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“Love and Happiness” by Alexandra Copeland© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.