Is 45:6-8, 18, 21-25 / Lk 7:18-23
Everybody wants and yearns for happiness. We pray for it. We lie, cheat, and steal in hopes of finding it. We work overtime in the belief that we can buy it or make it happen. Yet the world in fact is filled with unhappy people.
This is not what God wants for us, as both of today’s readings underscore so firmly. As Isaiah tells us, God our creator made the world to be lived in and enjoyed, not to be a wretched wasteland. And look at Jesus in today’s gospel, doing what he was always doing: curing diseases, afflictions and evil spirits, restoring sight to the blind, healing the lame, feeding the hungry, raising the dead.
God wants us to be happy, but the only way that can ever happen will be if we turn to him and plant our hearts and our lives deep in him.
So how are you doing on the happiness scale? Would you like to be happier and more at peace? If you aren’t as happy as you’d like, perhaps you’ve put your hopes and your loves in the wrong places.
Turn to him and be safe. Turn to him, and learn to do the works that he does, and you will find the peace and the happiness you seek.
