TRUE HAPPINESS by John Harvey Kellogg

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1902

TRUE HAPPINESS.

By John Harvey Kellogg

To be one with God, to be in absolute harmony with the power that works for good in all the universe, to be in accord with all the principles that govern our relations to the things and beings about us,—this is happiness. Sin and sorrow, death and disease, come through disobedience. Health, happiness, peace, and joy are the result of obedience. We suffer because we are at war with God; in other words, we are rebelling against divine order. Our suffering is not a punishment, an arbitrary infliction, it is simply a reaping of seed of our own sowing. Sorrow and pain are the warning sentinels by which God leads us back into the path of rectitude and wisdom. “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” A will surrendered to God in the fullest sense will obey God’s laws in all their relations to human life. Such a life must be a life divinely led, a divinely happy life, a healthy and joyous life. Knowing that God dwells within us, that we cannot for an instant escape from Him, ought we not to live as in His presence? In His presence is fullness of joy.

J. H. KELLOGG.