If I consider something impossible, extremely difficult, or beyond my abilities, I most likely will not even attempt to do it. Logical thinking tells me not to waste time on something that exceeds my capabilities or lies beyond my understanding.
Yet to grasp the essence of any field of knowledge, one must spend a very long time investigating, experimenting, making mistakes, searching, trying, and studying its underlying laws. That is how the process of learning works.
Consider, for example, an electrical outlet in your home. What is in it? Electricity at 220 volts and 10–16 amperes. You plug in an appliance, and it works, without your even thinking about where the electricity comes from or why that power remains constant. Yet behind those two or three wires in the outlet lies an entire industry, with its complex laws, mechanisms, inventions, underground and overhead lines, service personnel, and uninterrupted production. All of it is constantly in motion so that your home will have electricity. You simply press a switch, and the light comes on.
Or consider how our bodies work—how all our organs affect one another without asking our advice, simply laboring day and night as they carry out the design of their Creator. When I immerse myself in this world, I begin to understand and discover the great mysteries and laws of health and the interrelationship of the spiritual, physical, and emotional dimensions of life. Even then, many mysteries remain under God’s authority, beyond the limits of my understanding.
The study of love, happiness, and friendship belongs to those wonders of human relationships whose discoveries will delight us throughout Eternity and whose possibilities and supernatural influence will never cease to amaze us. At present, we are learning only the foundations of these disciplines, yet we are already astonished by how multifaceted and varied they are and how wonderfully they work together with my will and desires. Some people consider all of this far too difficult and inaccessible. They do not even attempt to learn more or dig deeper, contenting themselves with only a superficial experience of these laws.
If I decide to build my little house on the Rock, I must take many factors and laws into account so that my structure will stand and will not be swept away by the wind or by powerful torrents that may come after the rain, flowing down the slopes.
Once I flew to Magnitogorsk, and we were driven from the airport to a meeting in Bashkiria. We traveled across the steppe, and suddenly the Ural Mountains began to emerge in the distance. They rose directly from the plain as small hills and stretched away, growing into a mountain range that crosses the entire continent toward the far north and south, eventually ending somewhere beyond our sight. We stayed at the very beginning of that mountain range, unable to comprehend its full grandeur and height. Yet I understood that I was in the mountains because I remembered the map of that region from my geography lessons, even though I could not grasp their entire scale and magnitude.
As I approach happiness, I immerse myself in its outermost edge and come into contact with the eternal laws of this field of knowledge, without even imagining all the grandeur and power that begin working together, weaving themselves into my consciousness and existence and setting remarkable processes in motion within my mind. I am simply happy and cannot even explain why. I feel good because I have immersed myself in this ‘good,’ and its laws have begun to work in me as well.
Many philosophers and thinkers have tried to comprehend the study and mysteries of happiness, but they reached the limits of their imagination and concluded that everyone is happy in his or her own way, according to individual perception. When Eternity and infinity open before you and you are standing at their very edge, it is extremely difficult to imagine what they will become or where they end. You content yourself with what you can see and study only what lies within your field of vision and reach. Faith is needed to understand that there are vast realms which ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,’ but which a loving God has prepared for all who desire to inherit and explore them. When the Heavenly Father promises to show me great and inaccessible things that I do not know, He understands what He is speaking about and sees the whole picture. He reveals His beautiful landscapes to me as I advance deeper into the land of Love and Happiness. This land is immense. Our spiritual sight cannot even imagine it, yet it exists.
How great is the Rock upon Which we have begun to build? It is infinite, yet it has a beginning at a certain point in my life. What can I build on this Rock, where can I build, when can I begin, and how much can I build? Everything is limitless: I can build much, high, and deep, and I can begin right now. How long am I permitted to build? As long as Eternity lasts.
Yet a journey of thousands of miles begins with one small step. Great happiness begins with a small joy in discovering the great laws by which the entire infinite Universe lives. Wherever there is no law, no order, and no power ensuring that these rules are carried out precisely, chaos and destruction begin. But our God is a God of order and peace. With Him, everything is ‘in its proper place,’ everything has its definition, and even what we consider a miracle He calls the restoration of order according to His will and your request or expectation.
At the very beginning of learning about happiness, we must understand that it exists, that it has its own laws, and that it is infinite—yet it must begin at some point in our lives so that it may never end.
This sounds fantastic, but it is a living reality for a believer—a reality he will encounter sooner or later and cannot avoid. If I choose any direction and begin moving straight ahead, I will eventually reach an ocean and face the inevitable need to continue onward, for which I will have to enter it.
In the same way, life with God means that my growth takes place not only within my own shell, where it is warm and comfortable, but also in something that exists all around me—something I will inevitably reach if I keep moving. And that something is Love, Happiness, and Friendship in Christ Jesus. It is an infinite reality that cannot be avoided. Yet I can stop and refuse to enter it, contenting myself with what I already understand, what has already been revealed to me, and what is accessible within the limits of my narrow outlook.
Is God to blame for the narrowness of my thinking? No. He does everything possible so that I may go farther and higher. Our Earth is the world in which we are accustomed to living, but it is only a tiny part of the vast, infinite Universe surrounding us on every side—a Universe that tells us the Earth is only the beginning. For us, it is the center from which our upward growth begins, but beyond the Earth another world begins: mysterious and yet real. It has its own laws, which can be discovered and studied and by which we can live.
To go farther, it is worth understanding that happiness exists: it is real, infinite, eternal, and governed by its own laws. It is important to realize that happiness is available to me and has been prepared for me. It flows from Jesus and returns to Him. God is happiness, and those who abide in happiness abide in Him, and He in them. I came up with that myself, but that is truly how it is.
Bible verses for this chapter:
Romans 4:5–6; Hebrews 11:6, 16, 40; Hosea 4:6; 6:3; Hebrews 9:28; Ephesians 3:16–21; Genesis 12:1; John 10:10, 27–29; Luke 18:17; 1 Corinthians 2:9; Luke 1:17; 2:8–10, 14