Have you ever caught “lightning bugs” and placed them in a jar with vents in the lids so they could breathe? It was a favorite activity for children in our neighborhood. The bugs would be “captured” and then placed in a glass jar where their tiny bright “lights” would glow in the darkness of the night. After watching them go “on and off” for a while, they would be “freed” and fly off into the night.
Had they remained in the jar, they would have died. God intended for them to be free and happy and live the life He planned for them.
It’s like that with us. God planned a special life for each of us: a life of happiness. But happiness only comes from being free. Some think that happiness and pleasure are synonymous. They are not. Happiness is not derived from possessions nor destroyed by poverty. There is a story of a king who wanted the shirt off of the back of the happiest man in his kingdom. They found the man but he did not have a shirt. He only had a ragged cloak.
Happiness is not what happens to us. Happiness is what happens within us. It is the by-product of what is lived in agreement with the will of God. Life in His will brings us freedom from being “contained” by the things of the world. Happiness fills lives that are regulated by the Word of God. Following His Word and His way will bring pleasure and productivity to His children.
Psalm 1:1 promises “a blessed - or - a happy life” to those who delight in and obey His law. His law will set us free from being contained and controlled by worldly things.
Prayer: Father, may we set our eyes on things above, not the things of this world, and find Your happiness. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Scripture for Today: Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
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