It was Saint Augustine who answered the question, “WHY AM I UNHAPPY?” He went straight to the root of the issue when he wrote, “God, You have made us for Yourself, and [therefore] our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
In other words; if God has made us, and designed us to be happy with Him, and through Him. Then nothing else can take His place.
What am I saying? I’m saying God is the food our spirits need to eat. Other things will make our body happy, but not our spirit, or our soul, or our true self. Other things will make us happy for a while, but not for long. Other things will make us happy on a superficial level, but not deep down.
In his best-selling book, “Mere Christianity,” author C. S. Lewis observed, “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it won’t run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He, Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There isn’t any other. That’s why it’s just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way, without bothering about religion. God can’t give us happiness, and peace apart from Himself, because it isn’t there. There’s no such thing.”
James 1:17 declares, “Whatever is good and perfect, is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.”
That means, all happiness, all joy, all beauty come from God. The Bible is telling us that the joy of friendship, the beauty of nature, and the happiness of human love; they were all created by God, and designed to reflect His joy, and beauty. They all carry a little of His joy to us, just as air carries the light of the sun.
Every joy you ever feel is a reflection of God. God is not one of the many sources of joy, for “religious people” only. God is the source of all joys, and real happiness that exist.
by Corville Peters
