How Happy and New Year go Together

Pleasure-seeking, as we learn by experience, is a barren business; happiness is never found till we have the grace to stop looking for it, and to give our attention to persons and matters external to ourselves.”

_J. I. Packer

The question posed was this: “Would you rather I stay in an unhappy marriage or get a divorce and be happy?”

The answer was easy: “I’d rather you stay in the unhappy marriage and figure out how to be happy with the person you promised to remain with till death parted you.”

News alert!

Happiness is not the ultimate reason for living.

I’ve observed perfectly happy babies sitting in their dirty diaper blissfully content to stay in that state for hours at a time.

Matter of fact, to change that state made them very unhappy.

It doesn’t take much effort to build a list of truly horrific and horrible deeds done by people that made them genuinely happy.

God spare us from this kind of happiness!

The ONE THING for today: No, I’m not a modern day Mr. Scrooge. I truly do wish you a most happy New Year. But I want it to be the by-product of having lived well–because you did the right thing, the noble thing, and the important thing and that made you happy.