This morning I became discouraged and frustrated. My wife sensed it and cheerfully began to sing this chorus: Cheer up, you saints of God, there’s nothing to worry about, Nothing to make you feel afraid, nothing to make you doubt! Our God has never failed, so why not trust Him…
The aurora borealis, also called the northern lights, is one of the most magical sights of the night sky. When I lived in Iceland, I saw it many times. One memory stands out. It was February 2009, and I was about to leave Iceland to join another volunteer project in…
In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people all over the world…
When my daughter was very young, I overheard her praying for the rain to stop and for the next day to be nice. I said, “Honey, I don’t think the Lord minds us asking Him to stop the rain. He wants us to make our wants and wishes known to…
In the movie The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), Will Smith’s character makes the observation that the United States Declaration of Independence includes in its short list of “unalienable rights” the right to the pursuitof happiness—not the right to be happy, but the right to pursue happiness. Why, he questions, was…