Website owner: James Miller
In the past few years the phrase "Happiness is: this or that" has become popular. If one were to seriously ask me what I thought happiness was what would I tell them? I would have to say "Happiness is loving God and following in his way of righteousness and virtue." If you asked an evangelical what he thought happiness was he would say "Happiness is having Jesus in your heart." Can you reconcile these two viewpoints? That all depends on what the phrase "having Jesus in your heart" means, what it entails and constitutes, how you define the phrase. If it means taking God seriously, following his commandments, and living a life of moral principle, then perhaps you can. I believe happiness is love of God and always living true to the highest that lies within you, living true to your conscience and knowledge of Right. I believe that from an early age every person finds life like an obstacle course. He is constantly running into obstacles as he lives out his life. At each obstacle he must make a decision. He is faced with a choice of either of two routes (or actions) and he must take either one or the other. One route is an easy route but it is wrong and he knows it. The other route is hard and requires a lot of courage but it is the right route and he knows it. Which route shall he take? He must decide. Each decision involves doing what is right and in conformity with his conscience or doing what is wrong and in opposition to his conscience. Each obstacle that we meet is a test for us. Each presents to us a temptation. Each time we are faced with an easy route and a hard route. Each obstacle is a test to our courage. We can pick the way that requires courage or we can take the way of cowardice. Now it seems that people as a whole fall into two groups. One group is composed of those who, probably from an early age, have developed the habit of always taking the hard and courageous route of Right. The other group is composed of those who, probably from an early age, have developed the habit of taking the easy, but cowardly, route of Wrong. The first group of people have Character, Honesty and Integrity. The other group doesn't. Only a few of mankind belong to the first group; the masses belong to the second group. Aug 1983
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