Everything Is Never EnoughSample

THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS

What are you supposed to do with a gift? Enjoy it. But enjoying a gift can be harder than it sounds. Enjoyment depends on the ability, even the discipline, to be fully attentive to God’s goodness. Enjoyment is only a present experience, not something you can stockpile for future use.

In Qohelet’s terms, enjoyment is gift, not gain. Take for instance his experience of work: “I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil” (Ecclesiastes 2:10). The reward of Qohelet’s toil was not the money or goods he obtained from the work, to be enjoyed later, but the pleasure he experienced in the work, to be enjoyed now.

What brings you joy? A late three-hour conversation with a new friend on a warm weeknight. Cooking and eating Saturday dinner with your family. Playing hide-and-seek with a four-year-old. Joy in these activities is their proper immediate effect. It does not depend on some future condition coming true. The future can­not take this present joy hostage.

Qohelet’s solution to being preoccupied with the future is being properly occupied with what’s right about the present: “For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:20).

You might preoccupy yourself with fearful thoughts of the future, bitter thoughts of the past, or bleak thoughts of the present, but if you receive the present as a gift from God, then God fills your heart with joy. The joy God gives now occupies your heart, leaving no room for regret or anxiety to crowd in.

Every gift bears a trace of its giver, and every day and breath and moment is given by the inexhaustible God. Qohelet found that having it all won’t make you happy. He found that life itself is unfathomable and inexhaustible. If you want to enjoy it more, quiet your heart, commit your mind, and open your hands and your eyes. Though the days of your life are re­stricted, the depth of the good in them is not.

God, remind me that every good thing in my life bears a trace of you. Open my eyes to see your hand in my daily life and open my heart to receive your gifts with thanksgiving. Amen.

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