Did You Know You Were Put Here to be Happy?

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

There is a common belief that happiness is that rare moment of peace or magnificent exhilaration that you can experience either through sex, through drugs, or through the occult or through religion. So we have thousands of so-called Christians who do not live lives of principle at all. They live lives of feeling.  They live lives of feeling looking forward to the next exciting prayer meeting or the next exciting service.  But there is little principle in their lives.  Happiness is not a fleeting feeling of exhilaration or peace. You can be happy without those feelings at all. Those feelings are moonbeams.  Stop trying to catch moonbeams.  Those are effervescent, they're temporary, and they disappear in a moment. They aren't worth a moment's pursuit.

What is happiness? Happiness is being. It is being a certain kind of person. Happiness is character; it is being a certain kind of person. Your dear God put you here for a certain purpose. You don't do what I do, but you can do something that I can't do. More important than that you do something that you've been put here to do, whether a half-dozen other people can do it or not, you have been put here to do something by your Maker. That's why he put you here. Do that. Begin to do that for him with your whole heart. That is finally what happiness is. Happiness is being -- being what your Maker made you to be.