Turn Left? Turn Right?: How Can We Find the Way to Happiness?
Xuesong
If we compare the course of a man’s life to a journey in this material world, then each journey is surely different in the length and direction. Anyway, all of us wish it to be a journey of bliss and significance. However, after going through various hardships in life, many of us become aware that reality doesn’t always meet our wishes and that our wishes are merely a sort of thought or belief. When arriving at a crossing, we are always full of anticipation and hesitation, as we are ignorant of which path leads to happiness, how to make the journey meaningful, and even more ignorant of what is waiting for us at the end of the path. At the intersection of your life, which do you choose, to turn left or turn right?
In the beginning, when we stepped onto the path of life, all of us roamed in the ocean of knowledge, because in it there were footprints and teachings left by our predecessors and through it we could understand the mysterious and unfathomable world. After all preparations were made, we came to the first intersection of our life officially, and then we chose different directions to seek happiness according to the knowledge we had learned. When we turned left, the world told us, “With money, you are able to obtain all material enjoyments, and only then is your life the happiest.” Thus, in order to gain happiness, we struggled hard and did our utmost to chase after money. In order to make money, we even lost our conscience and morality, learned to deceive, and moreover, learned to vie with each other. Ultimately, some gained money while others obtained nothing. But we were similar in that all of us were unhappy, because we felt empty in our heart as if we were staying in a desert waste and nothing could fill the emptiness. In confusion, we turned right. This time the world told us, “Only when you gain status can you be truly happy. This path leads to true happiness, because it will enable you to gain not only money but also others’ support and admiration.” Thereupon, we started to intrigue against each other and deceive mutually. At last, we trampled others underfoot and scrambled to the high peak that we yearned for. However, when we rode on the crest of success and earned others’ flowers and applause, we were still not so happy and joyful as imagined, because all of us held all that we had possessed tightly, worried about their gains and losses. Exhaustion and pain came over us, and we seemed to have been thrown into a prison cell. At this moment, we were disappointed and weary, and even wanted to finish our life journey soon. We were puzzled: Where on earth is happiness? Why didn’t I get it as expected, no matter whether I turned left or turned right?
We felt very anxious yet could do nothing. I didn’t know why we were so distressed in this journey until I heard the utterances of the Creator. Almighty God says, “People think that once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on them to enjoy high status and great wealth, and to enjoy life. Once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on them in their pleasure-seeking and unscrupulous enjoyment of the flesh. People willingly, albeit unknowingly, take their bodies, minds, all that they have, their futures and their destinies and hand them all over to Satan in order to attain the fame and gain they desire. People do this without ever a moment’s hesitation, ever ignorant of the need to recover it all. Can people still have any control over themselves once they go over to the side of Satan in this way and become loyal to it? Certainly not. They are completely and utterly controlled by Satan. They are also completely and utterly unable to free themselves from the quagmire they have sunk down into”. “In other words, people who have not been saved are prisoners to Satan, they have no freedom, they have not been relinquished by Satan, they are not qualified or entitled to worship God, and they are closely pursued and viciously attacked by Satan. Such people have no happiness to speak of, they have no right to a normal existence to speak of, and moreover they have no dignity to speak of”.
I realized that our minds had already been poisoned by Satan, and beguiled by it, we had taken the wrong path at the start of our life journey. Therefore, regardless of whether we turned left or right, we were all like prisoners in shackles. We rushed about painstakingly for fame and gain and status. We gave up our youth and expended everything, but in the end, we simply became increasingly corrupted. We lost our conscience, morality, and the bottom line of being a man in face of the enticement of fame and gain and status. In order to attain fame and gain, we fought against each other to such an extent that we were exhausted and incapable of freeing ourselves from it. … We got lost, had difficulty controlling ourselves, and were trapped in sins, living in increasing agony. Even though we obtained everything we wanted, emptiness and perplexity occupied our heart, making us have no idea of where to go. In this way, we had been corrupted by Satan to such a degree that we had less and less human likeness and strayed further and further from God’s care and keeping. We simply didn’t have any happiness to speak of.
Then, how could we find the path to happiness? Now a soft voice resounded in my ears, “At the moment when a person is born, one lonely soul begins its experience of life on earth, its experience of the Creator’s authority which the Creator has arranged for it. Needless to say, for the person, the soul, this is an excellent opportunity to gain knowledge of the Creator’s sovereignty, to come to know His authority and to experience it personally. … If one views life as an opportunity to experience the Creator’s sovereignty and come to know His authority, if one sees one’s life as a rare chance to perform one’s duty as a created human being and to fulfill one’s mission, then one will necessarily have the correct outlook on life, will live a life blessed and guided by the Creator, will walk in the light of the Creator, know the Creator’s sovereignty, come under His dominion, become a witness to His miraculous deeds and to His authority”. “When your heart truly opens up to God, you will see that His heart is such an infinite world, and you will enter into a realm you have never experienced before. In this realm there is no cheating, there is no deception, there is no darkness, and no evil. There is only sincerity and faithfulness; only light and rectitude; only righteousness and kindness. It is full of love and care, full of compassion and tolerance, and through it you feel the happiness and joy of being alive. These things are what He will reveal to you when you open up your heart to God”.
God’s words dispelled our confusion and clearly showed us the path for a human life. How much wealth we will amass and what kind of status we will have in our life have long been predestined by the Creator. But Satan made use of fame, gain, and status to seduce us into opposing God for its vicious purpose of corrupting and devouring mankind. We were made to strive and struggle ceaselessly, attempting to escape from the Creator’s authority and change our fate. We did not realize that money is just as transient as fleeting clouds, which we cannot bring at birth or take at death, and status is insignificant and valueless as well. No matter how high our prestige is, we can never break free of the suffering of illness, the threat of death, as well as the consequent void and pain. What fame, gain, and status bring to us is only temporary satisfaction of fleshly desires, which is just a flash in the pan. They cannot bring us even the slightest spiritual consolation, but instead cause us intolerable emptiness and unendurable suffering.
The arrival of Almighty God is exactly an end to our wandering, painful life. He is the Creator of the heavens, earth, and all things, and also our one and only God. He is incarnated to speak among us, expressing the truth to provide us with life and to save us out of Satan’s net. Only by following His footsteps and submitting to His sovereignty and arrangement, will we not get lost in the course of our life. And only when we come before the Creator and open up our hearts to Him, commit everything of us to Him, obey His sovereignty and arrangement, and under God’s personal guidance, truly break free of Satan’s influence of darkness and walk onto the way of fearing God and shunning evil, can we be in the way for happiness. And only those who are willing to put God’s words into practice from now on will finally achieve happiness.
