Daily devotion – the search for happiness
Next week I have a funeral service on Thursday and a wedding ceremony on Saturday. Two vastly different gatherings, however, each with very diverse emotions. But both events are a normal part of life for all of us.
We all seek a life of ease without pain or suffering. The search for happiness drives most people living today, even for many in the Church of Jesus Christ.
It was King Solomon who thought he would find the key to happiness in this world if it existed. He had the resources, the intellect and the drive to make the quest for happiness seem possible.
Yet after trying everything and gathering everything possible for himself, all that he ever wanted. Yet he reluctantly concluded that his life – the richest, most famous, the brightest man in the world- was still empty and meaningless!
His search for lasting happiness failed, and his soul remained empty. I still remember reading in the news, after the suicide of Christina Onassis, daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the world, she wrote, “If you think happiness is found in riches, just look at my family, and think again!”
Are you, this day in 2024, in danger of making the same mistake King Solomon made – convinced that the things of this world will bring you happiness and peace and pursue them with all your might?
Today, don’t be deceived; they never will. And the reason is because you were made to know God.
Ecc 2:10 Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors.
Ecc 2:11 But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.