Most people have some degree of happiness in this life. However, most honest people can identify a list of things that could cause them to lose the joy they possess. Perhaps they console themselves by imagining that those things are unlikely. They may see their occurrence as bad luck. But can you ever truly be happy if your happiness is based on a roll of the dice? Can you really be happy if you aren’t yet capable of overcoming all things present in life?
13 My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste:
14 So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation <u>shall not be cut off. (Proverbs 24)</u>
Happiness the world offers is fleeting. It can't endure a greater awareness of the sorrow and evil that exists in this world.
How permanent is the happiness you feel? How easily could it be stolen from you?
Those who dwell on the default aims of life will, sooner or later, find themselves robbed of what they had placed value in and subsequently flooded with mental anguish and a lack of meaning.
If your joy is derived from anything false or temporary it will be shaken and destroyed. In this, you have no choice. Your choice is whether that shaking comes as a result of reality in the form of a nasty surprise at a time that might be too late to change it, or whether you will seek out God to shake and destroy it through revealing greater truth to you:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29 For our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12)
When you encounter unhappiness or your joy is stolen from you, consider it an invitation from a loving God to obtain what you lack; to learn the principles that you currently do not have that will empower you to feel greater and more enduring joy.
You can get to the point where nothing that could possibly happen in this life can cause you to trust God less than perfectly and unconditionally; where nothing can rob you of the joy you feel. It is possible to reach a point where nothing you could think of, feel, or experience can take your joy from you:
And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. (John 16:22)
God is the happiest being because he has the tools to maintain greater joy in the face of greater suffering than anyone else. The gospel is the means he uses to provide these tools to you:
10 And if it so be that the church is built upon my gospel then will the Father show forth his own works in it.
11 But if it be not built upon my gospel, and is built upon the works of men, or upon the works of the devil, verily I say unto you they have joy in their works for a season, and by and by the end cometh, and they are hewn down and cast into the fire, from whence there is no return. (3 Nephi 27)
13 And everything that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be, that are not by me or by my word, saith the Lord, shall be thrown down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord your God.
14 For whatsoever things remain are by me; and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed. (D&C 132)
Discover the limits of your present joy, and seek for improved sources of joy both in intensity and also duration. Find joy that does not perish, is not fleeting, and that can withstand all things present on this earth.