SOMETHING that everyone wants is to be happy. “Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess” are words from a familiar song by Ken Dodd. Many of us spend much of our lives trying to find happiness but the harder we try, the more elusive it seems. “If only I had a new car, a bigger house, a better job, etc. I’d be really happy”, we think. If we’re sensible we know that happiness is more likely to be found in more basic things like having good health, being part of a loving family, having peace of mind, etc. It’s sometimes only looking back at a particular time in our lives that we realise that we were especially happy then. We were probably too busy enjoying ourselves to think about it at the time. Here, I think, is a clue to the real secret of happiness. It’s when we are absorbed in something attractive outside ourselves, something which makes us forget ourselves, that we are likely to feel happy. It might be that we are deeply in love with someone, involved in an absorbing project which demands total commitment, training for a sporting event or anything else that takes us out of ourselves and enables us to flourish. We feel fulfilled as a person and so – happy. It is in our relationships with those we love that this feeling is likely to be the most intense and, above all, it is when we are prepared to give our lives to the God revealed in Jesus Christ and to be absorbed in His love for us that the deepest happiness will be experienced, for then we will know what Jesus meant when he said “I am come that they may have life and have it in abundance”. | 
