Daily Devotionals

'Every Day Light' with Selwyn Hughes

Devotional: May 9th

For Reading and Meditation:
     Matthew 6:19-34

We turn now to the next of our Lord's Beatitudes: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Matthew 5:6). One of the axioms of life is this: everyone thirsts after something. Some thirst for success, some thirst for fame, some thirst for stable relationships, and some thirst for financial security. But there is a thirst which is common to every human heart - the thirst for happiness. Notice, however, that Jesus does not say: "Happy are those who thirst for happiness", but "Happy are those who thirst for righteousness." Happiness, therefore, is a by-product - to get it, you must focus on something else. Dr W.E. Sangster, the famous Methodist preacher, when dealing with this point in one of his sermons, gave this illustration: "Do you enjoy a game of golf or tennis? Then this pleasure is strictly proportioned to the degree to which you lose yourself in the game. While it lasts, it must absorb you: your whole mind should be on the game. If you stop in the midst of it and ask yourself precisely what degree of pleasure you are deriving from this particular stroke, the pleasure will evaporate and you will begin to feel rather foolish in following a wee white ball over a mile or two of turf." To experience happiness, one must forget it and focus on something other than its pursuit. Those who reach out for happiness are for ever unsatisfied - the more they strive, the less they find. Happiness, I say again, is a by-product; it is not something you find, but something that finds you.

My Father and my God, I see so clearly that if my goal is wrong, then all of life turns out wrong. Help me to make my goal, not the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of righteousness. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.