Quotes & Sayings About Happiness In Life With God

Sometimes we read Scripture about rejoicing or trusting and think, "Easy to say, but you're not facing what I am." But few people have faced conditions as dire as Habakkuk, with the impending destruction of his nation, family and friends, and way of life. His statement "I will be happy because of the God who delivers me" demonstrates that delighting in God isn't dependent on favorable circumstances. Happiness in God involves an act of will toward the God who's there, and who loves us, even in hunger, war and prison cells. — Randy Alcorn

Central to knowing the Father is understanding the revealed pattern of family. The family is the most important unit in time and in eternity and is ordained of God. Living in loving family relationships not only brings us great happiness, but it also helps us learn correct principles and prepares us for eternal life. In addition, family relationships help us know, love, and understand the Father. This is one reason Latter-day Saints have always emphasized the importance of marriage and family both in the Church and in society. God's plan provides a way for family relationships to extend beyond the grave. We can return to the presence of God, eternally united with our families. — Quentin L. Cook

If I could take a bite of the whole world
And feel it on my palate
I'd be more happy for a minute or so...
But I don't always want to be happy.
Sometimes you have to be
Unhappy to be natural...

Not every day is sunny.
When there's been no rain for a while, you pray for it to come.
So I take unhappiness with happiness
Naturally, like someone who doesn't find it strange
That there are mountains and plains
And that there are cliffs and grass...

What you need is to be natural and calm
In happiness and in unhappiness,
To feel like someone seeing,
To think like someone walking,
And when it's time to die, remember the day dies,
And the sunset is beautiful, and the endless night is beautiful...
That's how it is and that's how it should be... — Alberto Caeiro

God is working on your behalf, for your happiness and inner peace. So move forward in faith, believing that He is with you and for you because He is. — Toni Sorenson

No one ought even to desert a woman after throwing her a heap of gold in her distress! He ought to love her forever! You are young, only twenty-one, and kind and upright and fine. You'll ask me how a woman can take money from a man. Oh, God, isn't it natural to share everything with the one we owe all our happiness to? When one has given everything, how can one quibble about a mere portion of it? Money is important only when feeling has ceased. Isn't one bound for life? How can you foresee separation when you think someone loves you? When a man swears eternal love
how can there be any separate concerns in that case? — Honore De Balzac

What must I say to God when I meet Him? What shall I say to Him for my sins?'

'I shouldn't mention the word,' I said. 'He'll be the best judge of your life. If you've got to say anything I should say, "You sent us forth into the world incomplete and therefore weak. With my own life, in these circumstances, and according to my own nature, I did what I could to secure happiness. But I did not even know what happiness was, or where to look for it, and it was whilst I was in search of it that I dare say I got a little muddled."' -- Hindoo Holiday — J.R. Ackerley

Real joy and happiness come from living in such a way that our Heavenly Father will be pleased with us ... One cannot break God's commandments and be happy. We should remember the scripture, "Wickedness never was happiness" — W. Eugene Hansen

To remove warfare from a spiritual life is to render it unspiritual. Life in the spirit is a suffering way, filled with watching and laboring, burdened by weariness and trial, punctuated by heartbreak and conflict. It is a life utterly outpoured for the kingdom of God and lived in complete disregard for one's personal happiness. — Watchman Nee

More than happiness or joy or lower blood pressure, the practice of God's presence gives us meaning. Through this practice we become more closely aligned with Jesus and we learn His desire for us more completely.Life can be hard.
The Practice of The Presence of God makes it easier. As Brother Lawrence said, There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. — David Paul Kirkpatrick

I believe God, through His Spirit, grants us love, joy, and peace no matter what is happening in our lives. As Christians, we shouldn't expect our joy to always feel like happiness, but instead recognize joy as inner security
a safeness in our life with Christ. — Jill Briscoe

Today is the day to stop, look around, realize where you are in relation to where you want to be, change direction if needed and move forward with faith in God and in yourself. — Toni Sorenson

The man upstairs can take it when we are mad. Swear all you want he can handle it. But do not remember God or whatever almighty force you believe in just when things go wrong. I am sure he would want to know it too when you are happy. The same goes for your friends. Don't dump on them just bad stuff but also share your happiness with them too. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes. — Robert G. Ingersoll

It astonishes me how some people say, 'How do saints and lovers of God find love in the eternal world beyond form, space and time? How can they gain strength and help? How are they affected by things without body or shape?'
Is not all life, night and day, engaged with these very things? One person loves another person and derives help through that love. They find care and grace, kindness and knowledge, happiness and sorrow. All these belong to that formless world. Moment by moment they receive benefits from these abstractions and are affected by them. However, this doesn't surprise the doubters. Yet they are amazed that saints can find love in the invisible worlds, and derive help without form. — Rumi

Let me here add a word of Christian counsel. To enter upon the marriage union is one of the most deeply important events of life. It cannot be too prayerfully treated. Our happiness, our usefulness, our living for God or for ourselves afterwards, are often most intimately connected with our choice. Therefore, in the most prayerful manner, this choice should be made. Neither beauty, nor age, nor money, nor mental powers, should be that which prompt the decision; but 1st, Much waiting upon God for guidance should be used; 2nd, A hearty purpose, to be willing to be guided by Him should be aimed after; 3rd, True godliness without a shadow of doubt, should be the first and absolutely needful qualification, to a Christian, with regard to a companion for life. In addition to this, however, it ought to be, at the same time, calmly and patiently weighed, whether, in other respects, there is a suitableness. For — George Muller

Thus Arthur achieved the adventure of the sword that day and entered into his birthright of royalty. Wherefore, may God grant His Grace unto you all that ye too may likewise succeed in your undertakings. For any man may be a king in that life in which he is placed if so he may draw forth the sword of success from out of the iron of circumstance. Wherefore when your time of assay cometh, I do hope it may be with you as it was with Arthur that day, and that ye too may achieve success with entire satisfaction unto yourself and to your great glory and perfect happiness. — Howard Pyle

Because there is happiness only where there is coordination with the Truth, the Reality, the Act that underlies and directs all things to their essential and accidental perfections: and that is the will of God. There is only one happiness: to please Him. Only one sorrow, to be displeasing to Him, to refuse Him something, to turn away from Him, even in the slightest thing, even in thought, in a half-willed movement of appetite: in these things and these alone, is sorrow, in so far as they imply separation, or the beginning, the possibility of separation from Him Who is our life and all our joy. And since God is a Spirit, and infinitely above all matter and all creation, the only complete union possible, between ourselves and Him, is in the order of intention: a union of wills and intellects, in love, charity. — Thomas Merton

LEONATO
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
BEATRICE
Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. — William Shakespeare

It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished. — Fulton J. Sheen

Dear God, please help me to love and value myself, and treat myself with loving care. Please help me to know that I deserve happiness (as we all do), and that I have the right to change my life in healthful ways. Thank you for supporting me as I stand in my power, strength, and love in my relationships and in my career, and for helping others to accept and support the changes that I need to make. — Doreen Virtue

Material possessions in themselves are good. We would not survive for long without money, clothing, shelter and food. Yet if we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death. — Pope Benedict XVI

People went up and down Sixth Avenue with the word motherfucker in their heads. They felt no emotions, had no sensation of life, love, or the pursuit of happiness, but only the knowledge of being stuck between a Thursday and a Saturday, air and things, this thought and the next, philosophy and action; birth, death, God, the devil, heaven, and hell. There was no escape, ever, was what people felt. — Tao Lin

And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless to us even our afflictions. — Benjamin Franklin

Jesus came to reveal God to us. He is the defining word on God - on what the heart of God is truly like, on what God is up to in the world, and on what God is up to in your life. An intimate encounter with Jesus is the most transforming experience of human existence. To know him as he is, is to come home. To have his life, joy, love, and presence cannot be compared. A true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest happiness. To be mistaken about him is the saddest mistake of all. — John Eldredge

The real problem is I'm greedy. I want complete, utter, unceasing bliss. But I don't want to fall into it either. If happiness were money I wouldn't want to win the lottery. I want to accomplish it, urn it as John Houseman would say. I want it to be an achievement because I want to be in control of my life. I don't want things to happen to me, I want them to happen because of me. Power I want. I want to feel the way I do when I stretch a new canvas and I want to feel that way all the time. the blank canvas fills me with the power of imminent creation. I'm its god an it always bends to my will and when I'm done I know, inside, that it's markedly better than what almost all of my similarly-engaged others can achieve. That's happiness. — Sergio De La Pava

In my long life I have found peace, joy, and happiness beyond my fondest hopes and dreams. One of the supreme benedictions of my life has been my marriage to an elect daughter of God. I love her with all my heart and soul. — James E. Faust

Dear Charles, she wrote.
After writing to express my appreciation for all the generosity of our friends, I would be remiss indeed if I did not include a missive to you. Out of all the new blessings in my new life, the one I thank God for the most is you. I thank you for writing to me through Genteel Correspondence, and for choosing me out of all the other women eager for adventure in the wild west.
I thank you for your kindness, and your gentleness toward me. Only very strong men can be gentle. I thank you for sharing your home and your life with me. I thank you for inventing delicious breakfasts. And chicory flavored coffee. And prayers that ease my mind and inspire my spirit and lift my heart. For your smile and the way you hold your hat in your hands. For the things you say and how you say them.
Did you know that I pray for you each day? I do. I pray for your safety and happiness.
Yours in Christ,
Rose — Jan Holly

Love can only take place where a relationship is free from idolatry and a person recognizes God as the source of everything. The moment we look to someone to be the source of supplying our happiness or comfort, we put them in the place of God. At that point, loving that person with the love of God becomes an impossibility. Your theological foundation is crucial to your growth in love. What you believe about God dictates your perspective and attitudes toward people and circumstances in life. — Norm Wakefield

It is true, I never stop wanting to learn the hard eucharisteo for deathbeds and dark skies and the prodigal sons. But I accept this is the way to begin, and all hard things come in due time and with practice. Yet now wisps of cheese tell me gentle that this is the first secret step into euchaisteo's miracle. Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant - a seed - this plants the giant miracle. The miracle of eucharisteo, like the Last Supper, is in the eating of crumbs, the swallowing down one mouthful. Do not disdain the small. The whole of life - even the hard - is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. (Page 57) — Ann Voskamp

Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Christian Hedonism is a philosophy of life built on the following five convictions: The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse. Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction. The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God. Not from God, but in God. The happiness we find in God reaches its consummation when it is shared with others in the manifold ways of love. To the extent that we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people. Or, to put it positively: The pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. That is: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. — John Piper

God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God's purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven.
All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully.
As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as any created things hinder our progress toward our goal, we ought to let them go. — Ignatius Of Loyola

A key to enjoying the Christian life is connecting the dots between our happiness and God's provision. When I run with my dog or look at Jupiter dominating the sky over Mount Hood, I experience happiness. Unbelievers are capable of enjoying happiness in the same things, but their happiness can't be as immense or enduring because they're disconnected from the Provider. — Randy Alcorn

We're all pieces of the same ever-changing puzzle;
some connected for mere seconds, some connected for life,
some connected through knowledge, some through belief,
some connected through wisdom, some through Love, and some connected with no explanation at all. Yet, as spiritual beings having a human experience, we're all here for the sensations this reality or illusion has to offer. The best anyone can hope for is the right to be able to Live, Learn, Love then Leave. After that, reap the benefits of their own chosen existence in the hereafter by virtue of simply believing in what they believe. As for here, it took me a while but this progression helped me with my life: I like myself. I Love myself. I am myself. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

I will never accept life for what it is. I don't need an easy life. My road was meant to be hard because anything worth having in this world will take me to the very edge of myself. I will overcome everything I have ever gone through and will make my future the one God intended me to have. I will pick up the pieces of this pain and sculpt it into art. I am not ordinary and never was. I walk into my birthright as a queen with her head held high. I was born to do this! — Shannon L. Alder

There exists an infinite, eternal Being, subsisting of himself, who is one without being alone; for he finds in his own essence relations whence, with the necessary movement of his life, results the absolute plenitude of his perfection and his happiness. A Being unique and complete, God suffices to himself. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.
Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope. — Alexandre Dumas

Whether you sweep the toilet of a school or you make cloths. Whether you take pictures of dancers or you are a full-time house wife.

Whether you are a village jester or the president of a company, never trivialize what you do. Your work, no matter how small you think it is can make a difference in someone's life. It all begins with you. It's not what you do, it's how you do it.

I have seen a traffic police bring minutes of joy and happiness to people's lives in a way that Presidents of nations cannot. Anytime you trivialize what gives you an income, you sell yourself cheap and lose your dignity. Do your work with all excitement, joy and positivity. Learn and grow from it. And if you haven't found a job to do, look for one with the same zeal as you would do the actual work. Good morning and may God bless our efforts. Emi Iyalla — Emi Iyalla

We ask God to endow human souls with justice so that they may be fair and may strive to provide for the comfort of all that each member of humanity may pass his life in the utmost comfort and welfare. Then this material world will become the very paradise of the Kingdom this elemental earth will be in a heavenly state and all the servants of God will live in the utmost joy happiness and gladness. We must all strive and concentrate all our thoughts in order that such happiness may accrue to the world of humanity. — Abdu'l- Baha

In fact, there are all sorts of great institutions and human enterprises that the Bible doesn't address or regulate. And so we are free to invent them and operate them in line with the general principles for human life that the Bible gives us. But marriage is different. As the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship says, God "established marriage for the welfare and happiness of humankind." Marriage did not evolve in the late Bronze Age as a way to determine property rights. At the climax of the Genesis account of creation we see God bringing a woman and a man together to unite them in marriage. The Bible begins with a wedding (of Adam and Eve) and ends in the book of Revelation with a wedding (of Christ and the church). Marriage is God's idea. — Timothy Keller

How do you get rid of unhappiness? You must release yourself from the prison you have unknowingly placed yourself in. Come to terms with the fact that there are things that you cannot control. But, just because you don't 'control' something, doesn't mean it's going to fall to pieces. That may be the hardest part. We get bent out of shape when something happens that is out of our control, because we don't understand why it's happening or where it's coming from. It's unsettling. You put your fighting arms up and prepare to battle the world. But, stop for a moment. Think. Where are all of these things coming from?
The world is not a wild, untamed place, where things are a free for all. Understand that there is a higher power running the world. — Leigh Hershkovich

Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them "god for us" or "bad for us." The event is only an event. It's how we treat the event that determines what it becomes in our lives. The event doesn't make that determination- we do. — Chris Prentiss

Let the children learn to see in nature an expression of the love and the wisdom of God; let the thought of Him be linked with bird and flower and tree; let all things seen become to them the interpreters of the unseen, and all the events of life be a means of divine teaching. As they learn thus to study the lessons in all created things and in all life's experiences, show that the same laws which govern the things of nature and the events of life are to control us, that they are given for our good, and that only in obedience to them can we find true happiness and success. — Ellen G. White

Living in fear is what every hater, negative person, and the devil wants. Live a righteous life with God and nothing but positivity. You must forgive anyone who has done you dirty, and move on. Your personal life, career, and love life will be that much more amazing after. Life is too short to live it being empty inside, sad, angry, and defensive just to hide your pain. Let it all go and let love and happiness in. Put yourself out there all the way and don't be fearful of losing love. If you don't live life by fully enjoying it and opening your heart, your just not living. — Behdad Sami

Getting even with the person that broke your heart will never give you peace. The only thing that will heal your wounds is believing that God loves you enough to bring someone else into your life to respect you and love you in the way you deserve! — Shannon L. Alder

Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own "yes" to God, for he wishes to give himself to you. — Pope Benedict XVI

Our love affairs with sin are not just a matter of morality, though, but of joy. This is not just about faithfulness to God, but about finding our deepest, most satisfying fulfillment. Many people think following Jesus means surrendering our happiness. You can either enjoy a fun, passionate, and exciting life here for a short time or live a bland, boring, but safe life forever with God. That lie is a quiet, but violent concentration camp, fencing men and women in, keeping them away from God, and torturing them with lesser pleasures that only lead to a swift and yet never-ending death. If you want to be truly happy - even in this life, surrounded by everything beautiful, fun, and exciting in this world - you want to be found with Jesus. — Marshall Segal

To enter upon the marriage union is one of the most deeply important events of life. It cannot be too prayerfully treated. Our happiness, our usefulness, our living for God or for ourselves afterwards, are often most intimately connected with our choice. Therefore, in the most prayerful manner, this choice should be made. — George Muller

Lenten practices of giving up pleasures are good reminders that the purpose of life is not pleasure. The purpose of life is to attain to perfect life, all truth and undying ecstatic love - which is the definition of God. In pursuing that goal we find happiness. Pleasure is not the purpose of anything; pleasure is a by-product resulting from doing something that is good. One of the best ways to get happiness and pleasure out of life is to ask ourselves, 'How can I please God?' and, 'Why am I not better?' It is the pleasure-seeker who is bored, for all pleasures diminish with repetition. — Fulton J. Sheen

I do my work easily and joyously. I feel beauty all around me and I see beauty in everyone I meet, for I see God in everything. I recognize my part in the Life Pattern and I find harmony through gladly and joyously living it. I recognize my oneness with all mankind and my oneness with God. My happiness overflows in loving and giving toward everyone and everything. — Peace Pilgrim

I did not want the evening to end just yet. I needed time to memorize what happiness felt like because I had experienced so little of it. Looking up into the night sky, I saw the Milky Way. I instantly thought of God and how I was afraid I was losing my faith in Him and the immensity of the fear and cowardice I felt when I thought of facing the world without Him. I was receiving the Eucharist every day of my life and fighting this war with faithlessness with every cell of my body, but I could feel the withdrawal taking place without my consent. — Pat Conroy

We have endless books about whether Jesus existed, or whether the Jesus we have learned about is really accurate and historical or mythical. We have endless complicated tracts on fine technical issues, but we don't explore Jesus' way to happiness and peace, or try to understand his feelings about God and creation of how he views our relationship with God, or his attitude toward human weakness. Understanding these things could help us immensely in our own search for inner peace and a meaning to life. — Joseph Girzone

What my life really is even now is "hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). What I "treasure" in heaven is not just the little that I have caused to be there. It is what I love there and what I place my security and happiness in there. It is God who — Dallas Willard

There is another life both for you and for me,' said I. 'If it be the will of God that we should sow in tears now, it is only that we may reap in joy hereafter. It is His will that we should not injure others by the gratification of our own earthly passions; and you have a mother, and sisters, and friends who would be seriously injured by your disgrace; and I, too, have friends, whose peace of mind shall never be sacrificed to my enjoyment, or yours either, with my consent; and if I were alone in the world, I have still my God and my religion, and I would sooner die than disgrace my calling and break my faith with heaven to obtain a few brief years of false and fleeting happiness - happiness sure to end in misery even here - for myself or any other! — Anne Bronte

Without God, all we do in life, no matter how great or significant, will pass and is useless. Only the things with Jesus at the center will bring true peace and happiness to both mankind and the world at large. — Leon Lutje

This search for happiness can knock us out of sync with God. As the life of Jesus makes clear, keeping in sync with God is about obedience. Any other pursuit will get in the way. — Franklin Graham

This is a life you do not understand. Yes, your home is in the city, and you have furnished it with vanities, with pictures and books; but you have a wife and a servant and a hundred expenses. Asleep or awake you must keep pace with the world and are never at peace. I have peace. You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content. If you ask me intellectual questions and try to trip me up, then I will reply, for example, that God is the origin of all things and that truly men are mere specks and atoms in the universe. You are no wiser than I. But if you should go so far as to ask me what is eternity, then I know quite as much in this matter, too, and reply thus: Eternity is merely unborn time, nothing but unborn time. — Knut Hamsun

I tried to believe in God, but I confess to you that God meant nothing in my life, and that in my secret heart I too felt a void where my childhood faith had been. But probably this feeling belongs only to individuals in transition. The grandchildren of these pessimists will frolic in the freedom of their lives, and have more happiness than poor Christians darkened with fear of Hell. — Voltaire

The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being. — Victor Hugo

Value all relationships for the lessons they teach. Make sure you learn the lessons well. If not you will repeat those mistakes over and over.
Focus on the kind of relationship you do want! Surround yourself with people who manifest those characteristics. Avoid and eliminate negativity at all cost.
Become a producer of that which is positive.
Look for the good in every situation and praise it. talk about it & be about it. Be about only good things.Create and manifest around you joy and peace and happiness. Let the presence of God be your model. Gods' kingdom consists of 3 things, righteousness, peace and joy in Gods words. When you become a positive producer, you will begin to attract what you produced
positives! — Stella Payton

God wanted to make heaven and the earth is that heaven. Nowhere in the universe there is so much love, life, beauty and peace. Enjoy your stay with the fellow beings. — Amit Ray

Apart from this ultimate hope, the created world would be a dungeon of despair for God's children. But faith animates our lives with an eschatological anticipation of the presence and glory of Christ. We will not find our full and permanent happiness here. Nor will we find Christian joy automatically, like a daily newspaper at the door. God intends for us to find joy kinetically, in action, as we work out our faith with fear and trembling, as we fight the good fight of faith, as we worship, fellowship, and engage in all the various dynamics of the Christian life together.62 But even in this, our hope of eternal joy sobers our expectations for the joy we can expect to experience in this life. — Tony Reinke

Life can be a painful struggle and filled with mysteries, so whatever one needs to do to get through the day to find happiness and to bring some resolution to those nagging mysteries ... well ... who am I to argue? As declared in Psalms 46:1: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. — Michael Shermer

Life is all about choices. Make the right one and find your happiness. Don't waste a minute thinking of what others have, be contented with what you have. Ask God to help you achieve. He will, if you believe in Him, if you work hard, and if you do not give up on your dreams. After all, if you give up on your dreams how can you blame others who give up on you? — Cecile Rischmann

Wishing you happiness always! Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons ... Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. — Max Ehrmann

When I have my interview with my God, our conversation will focus on the individuals whose self-esteem I was able to strengthen, whose faith I was able to reinforce, and whose discomfort I was able to assuage - a doer of good, regardless of what assignment I had. These are the metrics of that matter in measuring my life. This realization, which occurred nearly fifteen years ago, guided me every day to seek opportunities to help people in ways tailored to their individual circumstances. My happiness and my sense of worth has been immeasurably improved as a result. — Clayton M Christensen

All of us, single or married, are eternally part of some family-someway, somewhere, somehow-and much of our joy in life comes as we correctly recognize and properly develop those family relationships. We come to this earth charged with a mission: to learn to love and serve one another. To best help us accomplish this, God has placed us in families, for he knows that is where we can best learn to overcome selfishness and pride and to sacrifice for others and to make happiness and helpfulness and humility and love the very essence of our character. — John H. Groberg

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham,
drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Desiderata of Happiness — Max Ehrmann

Judaism calls for us to honor the rhythm of human life, the demands of the human community around us, the call of the divine order as the filter and scale for the decisions that drive our own small lives. We do not rule the universe, Judaism reminds us. God does. We are not its standard or its norms. We are only its keepers, its agents, its stewards. To do right by the universe at large is the measure of a happiness framed with the entire cosmos in mind but lived in microcosms across time. — Joan D. Chittister

As I have said, the Bible consistently changes the questions we bring to the problem of pain. It rarely, or ambiguously, answers the backward-looking question "Why?" Instead, it raises the very different, forward-looking question, "To what end?"We are not put on earth merely to satisfy our desires, to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.We are here to be changed, to be made more like God in order to prepare us for a lifetime with him. And that process may be served by the mysterious pattern of all creation: pleasure sometimes emerges against a background of pain, evil may be transformed into good, and suffering may produce something of value. — Philip Yancey

He had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track was lost in the darkness of night. It would never return to the sky again, because life was given only once and never came a second time. If he could have turned back the days and years of the past, he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity to those whom he had robbed of it. He would have found God and goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair. — Anton Chekhov

Most people believe the journey they begin with Christ goes forward, but that is not how he works. A spiritual life is not cutting ties with people, in order to walk clean in the future. The journey home isn't running away from obstacles. It is learning to stand where you are now and handle people, assert yourself, set boundaries and never feel your happiness is dependent on another person's approval of your choices, beliefs or spiritual needs. — Shannon L. Alder

Any pub will do?"
"McPherson's, I think. One with music that will alter my life forever, give me eternal happiness, and make me see God. You know. One like that."
"So you need the magical sound of Ireland and some information about an Abbeyglen native. Francine" - Beckett's eyes danced in the streaming sunlight - "I'm about to solve your every problem." Beckett stood up and gave my hair a light tug. "Prepare to worship and adore me. — Jenny B. Jones

Religion is not a method, it is a life, a higher and supernatural life, mystical in its root and practical in its fruits; a communion with God, a calm and deep enthusiasm, a love which radiates, a force which acts, a happiness which overflows. — Henri Frederic Amiel

In spite of the extent to which Solomon went to find happiness, because he left God out of the picture, nothing satisfied. It never will. Satisfaction in life will never occur until there is a meaningful connection with the living Lord above the sun. — Charles R. Swindoll