Looking for Happiness in all the Wrong Places? Try Hesed Instead.

Do you feel like you are looking for happiness in all the wrong places? God has given us a timeless recipe for happiness in a three-letter Hebrew word - Hesed.

Science tells us that what people most want and need for happiness is relationships. We want relationships where we can trust others and can depend on them. We want warmth, forgiveness and communication. We want someone who will support us and who is interested in helping us to become the best that we can become. This is at a time when unkindness is epidemic and commitment is viewed as an inconvenience.

How can we find the security, the warmth and the closeness that our soul needs? We can find it in hesed.

Hesed is the term that describes a covenant relationship in which both parties are bound to be loyal and faithful to each other. In this type of relationship we yoke our imperfect selves with God, promising to serve and to help him in certain ways and in return he promises us his mercy, love, safety, constancy, commitment and divine help. As other sources fail, we can find security in a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ. This relationship is changing me and has become a continual source of joy.

I have a dear relative who has experienced the pain of singleness for a lifetime. Lately I have noticed a radiance, peace and joy that she never had before. I knew that she had been attending the temple more often and recently she told me that she had been attending once a day. This was incredible to me considering her busy work schedule and life’s many demands. However, she said that she cannot not attend the temple this often. She has found a serenity and peaceful calm in her relationship with Jesus Christ.

As a teenage girl I found similar peace and joy. Although often lonely, I never felt alone. As I reached out to others in service and lived a bit peculiarly as I chose to follow God and His standards I felt an inner peace and calm. I now know that this feeling of inner peace and security was hesed, the feeling that God had not and would not ever abandon me as I tried imperfectly to stay close to him.

I love this quote: “While the world insists that power, possessions, popularity and pleasures of the flesh bring happiness, they do not. They cannot! What they do produce is nothing but a hollow substitute for ‘the blessed and happy state of those [who] keep the commandments of God…The truth is that it is much more exhausting to seek happiness where you can never find it.’” (Russell M. Nelson. Overcome the World and Find Rest)

So start looking for happiness in all the right places. Try hesed.

Comments

Don't Change Locations, Change What's Inside

We spent a lot of years early in our marriage pursuing happiness. And we made the same fatal mistake that most young adults make when they start seeking happiness. We decided that happiness was somewhere where we were not. We moved to Boston and took a job with a lucrative startup company. But despite living in a nice townhome with our two adorable little boys we spent our days wishing we were somewhere else. When we had made it big, when we moved back by family and bought a big home, then we would be happy. Boston was just a stop on the road to where we wanted to be. We worked hard very very hard and we saved our money. We didn’t take time to walk the Freedom trail or to eat lobster. We were sure that just around the next bend in the corner, after this phase of life, we would arrive at our destination. . We invested little in our relationships with each other instead investing in work and church and feeling perpetually more and more...

Waiting for Sunrise

On an early morning run I was captivated by this little family of sunflowers waiting patiently for the sun to crest the mountains behind my house. I was reminded of the times in my life when I had endured months, even years of darkness. But although I was surrounded by darkness, my life was never dark . Because of my knowledge that God loved me, that he had a purpose for my life, I did not give up, I did not abandon hope. And eventually, we experienced a resurrection morning. These sunflowers reminded me that as certainly as the rising of the sun - these trials will have an end . Perhaps no moment is more joyous than when - necks outstretched - we catch sight of the first faint glimmers of hope on the eastern horizon. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

How to Be Perfect

I read the scripture: "Be ye therefore perfect..." And it gave me some pause for thought. I am myself what you would call a Type A personality. I think the problem with perfection is when we think of perfection we think of quantity and we think of being the most like everything else. When we humans create things we mass produce. We want everything the same, of a certain "quality" which means it is the most like everything else, the most normal . So when we say someone's "perfect" we are either saying that they are very symmetrical and a lot like the mean. What we are really saying that they are just AVERAGE. We are all trying to be average. To lose weight or to gain it. To have the talents that everyone else has. The home that looks like the one that everyone else wants. But have we ever stopped to think who we are and what we want in our life? God does not make NORMAL. He does not make symmetrical. He makes in...

God's Rain

Search This Blog