As the song goes: "Clap along if you know what happiness is to you!"

What are some things that make people happy??

It could include:

• Robbing a bank, so you have enough money to do whatever you want (for a week anyway).  Okay, that may be a weak argument.
• Moving to Colorado and opening a shop to sell marijuana paraphernalia.
• Refusing to be controlled by another person, therefore deciding to have that abortion.
• Divorcing your spouse.
• Picking flowers from outside your favorite restaurant, then dancing in the fountain.

(Law enforcement may be called for the first and last example, though, sadly, the middle three find little challenge.)

Let's look at Jacob from the Bible ...

He felt Rachel made him happy.  Do we think he was happy to be tricked??  Well, they had arranged marriages back then.  And he accepted what happened, though he didn't like it.  Jacob did eventually get to marry Rachel, but we read in Genesis 30:2 that Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel.  That certainly does not show us a vision of happiness.

So, aside from some arranged marriages, most people would say they were happy on the day they got married.

The Book of Malachi mentions the "wife of your youth", sharing all those youthful hopes and dreams ...and bound as one, through a covenant witnessed by God.

The Apostle Paul voices the conviction to keep the marriage together ...keeping the children sanctified.

The Book of Deuteronomy 24:5 makes the strong recommendation that if a man marries, he must be free to stay at home for one year ...being exempt from war and any other obligations.

The Law, handed down from Moses, was not consistently followed ...yet, when dealing with adultery, divorcement was not the penalty for that ...death was.

And in the Book of Matthew, Jesus makes it clear: "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  And I say unto you,'Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committetth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.'"

In the Book of Hosea, Hosea writes: The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods ..."

It clearly shows that the love God has for us ...is how He likewise instructed Hosea to be towards his wife.  And what we consider as irreconcilable differences, somehow transpires from that professed love on our wedding day, to a consideration of what we want and what makes us happy.

If we buy a car, and the very next year they come out with a model we like a little more ...well, many of us may trade ours in for the newer model.  If we approached our marriages the same way, we may likely be never satisfied ...tiring of one and looking for someone different.  It's like the saying, "the grass is always greener."  Someone else would always come along ...and I hope we all would be inclined to say we have the best in our spouse, but we may not always feel that way ...some moments we may, and other times we may feel it's never been worse.  At times we may struggle with the temptation of regrets, wishing we had waited for another person to have come into our life. 

Perhaps waiting until we are 90 years of age or more, we could adequately say we've played the field ...all the time not realizing we've gone out to pasture, but nonetheless we miss out on life because we fear our narcissistic drive may deprive us of the best.  Would we realize we 'bested' ourselves?

W.W.J.D.?? ...a few years back many people were wearing a bracelet with these initials on it. What Would Jesus Do??

The blame had shifted so insanely, whereby the law used to say both the man and woman caught in an act of adultery were to face the penalty of death.  But, then the men only found fault with the woman ...and Jesus said that he who is without sin could cast the first stone.

Jesus is all about forgiveness ...he died on the cross for all of us sinners.  Yet, forgiving us does not mean to stop acknowledging the sin.  Jesus forgave the woman, then told her to sin no more. We all continue to sin, yet in dealing with one sin at a time ...we are to focus on not doing each sin over and over.  Or worse, not even recognizing it as sin.

In not acknowledging sin, do we actually allow our distorted thinking to rationalize that it's okay to keep on doing what we've been doing?   

Forbid we would find our happiness in sin.