Happiness is ...

When I was in college I took a class in typography and for my project I put together a booklet using hot metal type. The topic of my booklet was “Happiness is …”

I asked friends and others too  what happiness was to them and the answers were quite varied. I still have the booklet, but where is questionable. So, therefore, I only remember some of the answers. … like Happiness is eating a dilly bar … Happiness is playing in the mud …  Happiness is being with the one you love … making love … being married … finding God.

My mother, I remember,  said, “Happiness is a state of mind.” I thought at the time that seemed like such a cop out. I was in my early 20s. It seemed happiness should be something you do or that just was. Now, 40 years later, I remember her comment and think, wow, she’s right. Happiness is a state of mind.

Happiness is dependent upon your focus. If your focus is on self things, then it’s all about you and what makes you feel good.  But when your focus is on God, your aim is to live in ways that are pleasing to Him.

Since becoming a Christian – a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, I have worked to keep my focus off me. I’ll be working on that until the day God calls me home. It is a lifelong struggle, but the benefits of keeping our focus on God far outweigh the intense feelings Satan works diligently to get us to listen to, believe and then act on about ourselves and about others.

 Satan’s whole goal is to deceive, to distract, to distort.  God is always honest, always truthful, always loving.

The choices we make are our own responsibility. Not everything we do is always because of just us.  There is often another party. But each one of us individually has a choice to make … 

Will you turn away from what is bad and evil and turn to God?