Are you looking for happiness ?

Saturday 21 August 2021

Are you looking for happiness ?

“You make known to me the path of life; there are abundant joys in your presence, eternal happiness at your right hand.” Psalm 16. 11

Each year thousands of books are published with the theme of happiness or joy. The trend is increasing rapidly according to statistics. Could it be because our contemporaries are thirsty for happiness, something which they find more and more difficult to find? Carlin Flora wrote : “To a certain extent we became more and more sad and stressed as in the same years a movement of pursuit of happiness was developing all over the world.” The prestigious Yale University in the United States offered at the start of the 2018 academic year a new course entitled “Psychology and the good life”, the subject of which is the pursuit of happiness. Would you believe this course is already the most popular on campus! Professor Laurie Santos who leads this course explains : “Students want change, they want to experience personal happiness and change the culture in universities.” The University of Bristol in Great Britain also offers a full 12 week course titled “How to Find Happiness” which explores topics such as psychology and neuroscience in order to study the different methods of finding happiness. Never in the past have people felt so miserable as they are today. Can this pursuit of happiness be truly satisfied ? Were we created to seek happiness ? CS Lewis believed that the pleasures of the world we live in are not meant to satisfy us, but to send us back to the source of true happiness. And what is she ? David recognized her : "Blessed are the people who know how to acclaim you : they walk in your light, O Lord, they rejoice without ceasing because of your name and derive glory from your righteousness" (Psalm 89. 16-17). “Is not happiness for you and me, believers, to fix our gaze on the face of God, in Jesus Christ, and to walk on his path of light, of life and of righteousness ?” as Derwin Grays writes ?

Source (His Word for Today)