Refusing Even a Bite of Happiness

Tonight at dinner young Master Aaron was tired and hungry as all get out.  He was so hungry, in fact, that he was out of sorts and ornery.  And because he was out of sorts and ornery, he claimed to want nothing to do with food, and refused to eat a single bite.  And because he refused to eat, he became more hungry.  And more ornery, etc., etc.  If you've ever done battle at the dinner table, you can see where this is going.  In no time flat, we had one unhappy four-year-old on our hands.  Which can lead very quickly to a bunch of other unhappy people at dinner, of course.  Every time we encouraged eating and suggested how much better it would make Aaron feel, he got madder.  Eventually, a significant amount of coaxing and convincing persuaded him to come take a bite of food.  And as soon as one bite was down, he perked up and was willing to take another, then another, then another.  And within about two minutes, he was his regular, happy self, with nary a sign of the naughtiness so prominently on display before.

I suspect that, to God, we often seem as crazily stubborn as Aaron seemed to me tonight at dinner.  We want our own way so badly that we fail to see what is really most likely to bring us happiness in life.  And when our loving Heavenly Father tries to point out to us the things that will bring us lasting joy, we get ornery and shake our heads and stamp our feet and insist that we don't want anything to do with it.  The ancient prophet Nephi described how his people "lived after the manner of happiness," (2 Ne. 2:27) suggesting that living in a certain way--after a certain "manner"--is most likely to bring us joy.  I believe that the way to find real happiness is to align our lives, as best we can, with what God wants for us.  We do this by keeping His commandments and seeking to know--and then do--His will.  The minute we start living that way, or even wanting to live this way, we start to know the joy that God wants to give us.  The longer we insist on doing things our own way, the longer we risk remaining ornery and out of sorts, when we could be enjoying a feast of good things.  

I Get No Love From a Fire Truck Eraser

While eating my lunch of leftover pork today, my spunky and often mischievous two-year-old daughter Kate found someplace a little red eraser in the shape of a fire truck.  She held it in front of her face and announced, "dis no love you," which is Kate-speak for "This doesn't love you."  I wasn't overly surprised by this, never having expected to receive much in the way of affection from an eraser, fire-truck-shaped or otherwise, so I gave a distracted "mmm hmm" affirmation and went on with my pork meat.  When Kate repeated that "dis no love you," I asked for some verification: "that eraser doesn't love me?"  Her response: "No.  Dis no love you.  I love you."  My heart melted.  

This little dialogue reminded me of how frequently we forget the sources from which we can expect love.  The reason this matters, of course, is that we should invest our time and energy, our efforts and our abilities, in those areas where we can be assured of a return on investment.  A great many people, when asked, will tell you that God, family, and friends are some of the most important things in their lives.  But then we sometimes dedicate our best selves not to God and the people who care about us, but to things of secondary or tertiary importance: work, sports, hobbies, accomplishments, honors, the list could go on forever.  We would be well advised to remember that as important and enjoyable as those things can be, we're not going to get any more love from them than I could count on from the fire-truck eraser that Kate found under the kitchen table.  I may love golf, for example, but it doesn't love me back, and I probably ought to spend more of my time on things that do.  (Clarification: I couldn't hit a golf ball to save my life).   God and my neighbor by right have the greatest claims on my life; I want to make sure I don't neglect them for something that will, in the end, leave me empty.