Recently we celebrated the beginning of a new year. As part of this celebration, I received close to 100 Christmas and New Year's cards, not counting the e-mail wishes from many family members and friends from all over the world. As I was opening and reading the messages, I noticed that the majority of the cards carried a printed message written in bold letters: "We wish you a Happy New Year," replacing the familiar wish and song "We wish you a Merry Christmas!"
There seems to be a new trend nowadays to avoid any reference to religion or to discriminate, and many of the new messages read like this: "Warmest thoughts and best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a very happy new year." Well, I didn't know the difference between normal thoughts and warm thoughts-maybe a hot shower-and it did not give me the recipe to enjoy a very happy new year! And so, by curiosity, I became a seeker of true happiness, and I want to share with you what I discovered.
I started by asking myself, "What is the meaning of a 'very Happy New Year?'" My first thought was to define happiness according to my own thinking, a tempting but dangerous approach as we are surrounded and deeply influenced by the world's philosophy and definition of happiness. So I went to the dictionary for help, hoping to find the answer from the wisdom of the learned. The definition read: "happiness, a state of well-being and contentment." A thought came directly to my mind about the mailing of New Year's cards for next year. Why not suggest to my friends that they enclose a $100 bill with their card and the wish for a very Happy New Year! That would surely be a good beginning for my well-being and contentment as most of us know how money can help solve a lot of issues and desires! Could money possibly be a key to happiness?
To my surprise, under the heading of money, the dictionary indicated that money cannot buy happiness, among other things. Too often we are tempted to think that temporal satisfactions like those promoted by the media and businesses may give us the expected well-being and contentment for feeling better, looking better, eating better, living better, and even dying better! There is nothing wrong with believing this, but at the same time, we recognize that this contentment is always short lived and does not bring lasting happiness. How can we then obtain long-term happiness?
After consulting the dictionary, I wanted to find the opinion of people who wrote about happiness. One of them, Chateaubriand, a well-known French writer of the 19th century, even a participant in the American Revolution, wrote: "All the souls don't have an equal aptitude to happiness." This is an interesting thought inferring that happiness is related to agency, which is the ability and freedom to choose good or evil and accountability, which is the process of assuming the consequences of our choices and actions resulting from agency.
Another one, Elder Dean L. Larsen, a former President of the Seventy, wrote: "Accountability has to do with one's exercising his own will to make decisions and follow a course of conduct. It implies self-initiative and a measure of self-reliance, but it requires more than the ability to act for one's self. It must be guided by knowledge of true principles."[1]
In my short search for knowledge of the true principle of happiness, I concluded that there were in fact two sources to find it: one, coming from the temporal world, a secular source; the other, coming from the spiritual world, a divine source. The worldly message can be summarized in one word: hedonism, which is "the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life." It might be called "the great plan of pleasure" and is short lived. On the other hand, the divine message is shared by the prophets, seers and revelators, representatives of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, His beloved Son. It is called "the great plan of happiness"[2] or "the great and eternal plan of redemption."[3] It is long lived.
We discover then, thanks to the scriptures, that there is a God and that He desires that we find real, lasting happiness versus the unreal, short-term happiness offered by the devil. By revelation we know that our mortal and immortal happiness is the purpose of this life and that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of this world who made the Atonement to achieve eternal happiness. His gospel reveals the true plan of happiness. Thus, to be truly happy is to know the Lord's plan received by revelation, to obey His commandments, and to live His gospel.
This is or becomes our continual mortal challenge, being subjected or affected constantly by the external conditions of the world, for which we may not be directly responsible but for which we pay the consequences. In fact, your present life in college and your future life thereafter should not depend on the environment or other circumstances affecting you. The agency that you have been given is the determining factor of success related to happiness or failure, which is, of course, related to unhappiness. Happiness or unhappiness is thus the result of a choice. It is a matter of decision; it is a matter of learning by faith and then exercising personal discipline.
Let us take a brief look at the external conditions of the world that are affecting us lately. We are witnessing a revolution in values with its primary characteristics being a militant secularism, not a benign agnosticism, but a hostile rejection of religious faith. Last month an article was published in the opinion column by a leading newspaper in Salt Lake City titled "Empirical evidence against a supreme being." Listen to this short quote that underlines the militant secularism of its author: "Scientifically, the Bible is wrong from the very first sentence, and goes downhill from there. . . . There is no empirical evidence for an omniscient Supreme Being."[4]
The Belgian sociologist Ron Lesthage defines this revolution as a retreat from the values affirmed by Christian teaching, such as responsibility, sacrifice, altruism, and sanctity of long-term commitments like marriage and childbearing, toward an all-pervasive individualistic secularism centered on the desires of the self.
In comparison to the decadent and ever-changing conditions of the world, let us now turn to the edifying, revealing, and permanent true values and principles that were given by revelations to prophets so that one can become a humble seeker of true happiness and feel, as the scriptures say, "exceeding joy or being swallowed up in the joy of God."[5]
Where do we start? Learning by faith the values and principles of truth. What is truth? "And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come."[6] In the spring of 2008, President Kim B. Clark confirmed the core characteristic of this great institution, BYU-Idaho, as he quoted this revelation given to Joseph Smith: "Seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith."[7] President Clark then concluded: "We must realize that vision by helping students find temporal and spiritual truth through focused study and righteous action based on faith in Jesus Christ."[8]
So, confronted between spiritual knowledge and other temporal, rational, or so-called politically or intellectually correct statements trying to usurp revelation, the words of Alma are applicable today as they were during his time: "And we have beheld that the great question which is in your minds is whether the word be in the Son of God, or whether there shall be no Christ."[9]
Skillfully questioning and attempting to destroy the reality of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, is not new in the history of mankind. The very subtle affirmation by some that one cannot deny the existence of a God, but one cannot believe that there is a God,[10] reminisces of the tactics used by too many detractors of the believers of ancient times like the antichrist Korihor arguing with the high priest Giddonah: How can you believe in an unknown "being who never has been seen or known, who never was nor ever will be."[11]
Thus, Christ becomes a myth and not a fact. It always seems that the testimony of a factual, resurrected, living Christ cannot be accepted as it is or as it was. It is still the eternal conflict between agnosticism and faith, atheism and revelation. It marks the difference between temporal daily despair and spiritual eternal joy by denying or accepting the spiritual truth about Christ, His mission, and His gospel. How do we become a humble seeker of true happiness to deserve spiritual eternal joy?
First, true happiness is a result of our will to obey the Lord's commandments, our decisions to live the Lord's way in order to create "eternal happiness or eternal misery, according to the spirit which they listed to obey, whether it be a good spirit or a bad one."[12] The result of our obedience is also called "never-ending happiness"[13] or "endless life and happiness."[14] The pattern of the Lord for the great plan of happiness is very simple: given revelation is always followed by given commandments. Why? So that "every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world; That faith also might increase in the earth."[15]
Let us recognize this pattern in the scriptures. It starts with an observation of the Lord about the people of the world. What is their usual challenge? "They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness." What is their problem? "Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god." What is the Lord's answer to what He describes as a calamity? First, He called His servant Joseph Smith, Jun., as a prophet. Second, He spake unto him from heaven to give him a revelation. Third, He then gave him commandments.[16] So what is the recommendation of the day or the new resolution of the year? Become a "humble seeker of happiness"[17] by learning by faith to obey the commandments of the Lord given to prophets by revelation.
Second, true happiness is a deliberate choice. Deliberate means characterized by awareness of the consequences. "Wickedness never was happiness." This was the concluding lesson given by Alma to his son Corianton: "Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness."[18] One is raised to happiness or sin according to one's desires.
It is the same as with faith. It always starts with the desire to believe. Laman and Lemuel, older brothers of Nephi, were murmuring against their father. They were not at all happy with his decisions to leave their home and possessions. Why was it so? "They knew not the dealings of that God who had created them" and "neither did they believe."[19] On the contrary, Nephi had great desires to know. He prayed, his heart was softened, he did believe and did not rebel.[20] Nephi was blessed by the Lord because of his faith and because he sought the Lord with lowliness of heart.[21] It is the same with happiness. Become a humble seeker of true happiness by creating the desire to learn by faith and making deliberate choices.
Third, true happiness is connected to revelation, the sacred word of God, and to maintain it in our life. Moroni is justifying winning the battle against Zerahemnah, his Lamanite opponent in the battle, saying: "We have gained power over you, by our faith, . . . and also by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness."[22] The scriptures contain the sacred word of God that has been preserved by the prophets for our knowledge, sake, and action.
Notice the emphasis given to the word knowledge of the sacred word and the relationship to salvation in the following scripture: "And at that day shall the remnant of our seed know that they are of the house of Israel, and that they are the covenant people of the Lord; and then shall they know and come to the knowledge of their forefathers, and also to the knowledge of the gospel of their Redeemer, which was ministered unto their fathers by him; wherefore, they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved."[23] To become a humble seeker of true happiness is to learn by faith how to maintain the sacred word of God in our daily life, meaning to keep it in an existing state.
Fourth, true happiness is a way of life. "And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness," exclaimed Nephi after his separation from the Lamanites.[24] Today, as always, we are exposed to an unprecedented growing trend to tolerate, accept, and then support what was earlier and always considered as evil. This has been the devil's plan to destroy the great plan of happiness since the beginning. Isaiah already gave the following warning: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"[25]
There always comes a time when separation between seekers of true happiness and seekers of pleasure takes place. Nephi, his family, and his followers received a warning from the Lord to depart from those who would be called Lamanites and flee into the wilderness (see 2 Nephi 5:5). What were the differences between the Lamanites and the Nephites in their way of living? These great lessons are learned from Nephi, the prophet:
- "Believing in the warnings and the revelations of God" (v. 6).
- "Observing to keep the judgments, and the statutes, and the commandments of the Lord in all things, according to the law of Moses" (v. 10).
- "Teaching to work" (v. 15).
- "Teaching to be industrious, and to work with their hands" (v. 17).
The Lord has always given "a pattern in all things, that ye may not be deceived; for Satan is abroad in the land, and he goeth forth deceiving the nations."[26] To become a humble seeker of true happiness is learning by faith to live after the manner of happiness of the Lord.
Today I have given you a brief description of what happens when we turn to the Lord to learn by faith how to become a humble seeker of happiness. Here are the four basic elements again:
- Obey the commandments given to prophets by revelation.
- Create the desire to learn by faith and make deliberate right choices.
- Maintain the sacred word of God in your daily life, meaning to keep it in an existing state.
- Live after the manner of happiness of the Lord.
History and testimonies of the faithful tell us the following about the followers of the great plan of happiness: "And surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God." And why was it so? "Because there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness. Because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people."[27] My sole purpose in this talk is to help you to be truly happy and to give you a true perspective of happiness. In Proverbs we read that "Where there is no vision, the people perish."[28] Here are some final suggestions for a vision of happiness:
- Happy are you that findeth wisdom.[29]
- Happy are you that getteth understanding.[30]
- Happy are you that hath mercy on the poor.[31]
- Happy are you that trusteth in the Lord.[32]
- Happy are you that keepeth the law.[33]
And so, "If ye know these things, [now you do!] happy are ye if ye do them,"[34] or in the words of President Boyd K. Packer: "If you understand the great plan of happiness and follow it, what goes on in the world will not determine your happiness."[35]
True happiness begins by believing and learning by faith that whatever you have done or are already doing is nothing with regard to what you can do in the future. Changes are part of your life and your future, and if they are linked with true values and principles of happiness, they will make you succeed and be happy.
Regardless of what you do or what you don't have in this life, your deepest, most lasting happiness will come from knowing God's plan of salvation, the great plan of happiness, and following it because of your faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. King Mosiah, a prophet, put it this way:
"I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness."[36]
It is now time to conclude, and the best way is to wish you a very Happy New Year. You still have 319 days left to ponder how to become or remain a humble seeker of true happiness!
Notes
[1] Dean L. Larsen, "Personal Accountability," BYU Fireside, Mar. 1983, 2
[2] Alma 42:8
[3] Alma 34:16
[4] "Empirical evidence against a supreme being," The Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 9, 2011, 6
[5] Alma 27:17-18
[6] Doctrine and Covenants 93:24
[7] Doctrine and Covenants 109:7
[8] Kim B. Clark, "Letter from the President," BYU-Idaho Magazine, Spring 2008, 2
[9] Alma 34:5
[10] Alma 30:48
[11] Alma 30:23-28
[12] Alma 3:26
[13] Mosiah 2:41
[14] Mosiah 16:11
[15] Doctrine and Covenants 1:20-21
[16] Doctrine and Covenants 1:16-17
[17] Alma 27:18
[18] Alma 41:10
[19] 1 Nephi 2:12-13
[20] 1 Nephi 2:16
[21] 1 Nephi 2:19
[22] Alma 44:5
[23] 1 Nephi 15:14
[24] 2 Nephi 5:27
[25] Isaiah 5:20
[26] Doctrine and Covenants 52:14
[27] 4 Nephi 1:15-16
[28] Proverbs 29:18
[29] Proverbs 3:13
[30] Proverbs 3:13
[31] Proverbs 14:21
[32] Proverbs 16:20
[33] Proverbs 29:18
[34] John 13:17
[35] Boyd K. Packer, "The Father and the Family," Ensign, May 1994, 20
[36] Mosiah 2:41