Quotes about Happiness

Countless people in worse situations are happier than those in better situations. This demonstrates that happiness is dependent not on circumstances but on perspective, which is determined by our focus.

Both psychological research and Scripture demonstrate that those who give generously and serve others are happy people.

Augustine was right: "It is the decided opinion of all who use their brains that all men desire to be happy. . . . The happy life which all men desire cannot be reached by any who does not cleave with a pure and holy love to that one supreme good, the unchangeable God.

Why aren't you happy?" they tend to focus on their current circumstances. Happy people look to Someone so big that by his grace, even great difficulties provide opportunities for a deeper kind of happiness.

Yes, Satan rebelled. Yes, Adam and Eve freely chose sin, and with it death and suffering. And yes, the all-powerful, happy God could have intervened to prevent those choices. If that intervention would have brought him more glory and us more good, no doubt he would have done it. But God, in his wisdom, determined that not even rebellion and sin could thwart his plan to further his happiness and that of his people.

The human race is homesick for Eden, which only two humans have ever known. We spend our lives chasing peaceful delight, following dead ends or cul-de-sacs in pursuit of home. We know intuitively that we've wandered. What we don't know is how to return. Our lives are largely the story of the often wrong and occasionally right turns we take in our attempts to get home to Happiness with a capital H—God himself.

Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (Hebrews 11:6, emphasis added). Call that payoff contentment, satisfaction, peace, or excitement—it all adds up to one word: happiness

Do we seek happiness because we're sinners or because we're human? Should faith in God be dragged forward by duty or propelled by delight? Must we choose between holiness and happiness? Much

we inherited from our Eden-dwelling ancestors a sense of their pre-Fall happiness. Our hearts refuse to settle for sin, suffering, boredom, and purposelessness—we long for something better. Were we merely the product of natural selection and survival of the fittest, we'd have no grounds for believing any ancient happiness existed. But we are all nostalgic for an Eden we've only seen fleeting hints of. Unfortunately

To be truly happy—a man must have sources of gladness which are not dependent on anything in this world." —J. C. Ryle

God cannot give us happiness apart from Himself, because there is no such thing." —C. S. Lewis

Once we've been reconciled to God, we can do something more about our happiness by doing what happy people do. Happiness doesn't precede giving and serving; it accompanies and follows it.