Only Let Me Make My Life Simple and Straight

“There is no true liberty nor real joy,” said Thomas 4a Kempis, “save in the fear of God with a good conscience.”

The search of life is a search for happiness, for truth, for love, for understanding; for the meaning of the universe, and for knowledge of Him who is the Father of us all, who made us in His image and who keeps all creation in its course. And in this search Rabindranath Tagor said, “Only let me make my life simple and straight.”

Ill health, heartaches, and unhappiness often come from searching for the right thing in the wrong way. “We degrade life by our follies and vices,” said Christian Bovee, “and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.”

“Mistake not those pleasures,” said Jeremy Taylor, “. . .that trouble the quiet and tranquility of thy life.”

“The secret of all success is to know how to deny yourself,” said Roswell Hitchcock. “Prove that you can control yourself,” said Rosewell Hitchcock. “Prove that you can control yourself, and you are an educated man’ and without this all other education is good for nothing . . . Every step of our progress toward success is a sacrifice.”

To all this Robert Louis Stevenson added that we should develop “the habit of being happy.”

Who would know better what will make us happy than a loving Father whose children we all are, and who has given us kindly counsel which we call commandments⎯counsel that comes from infinite wisdom, from one who know our nature and wants us to have happiness and peace and the limitless possibilities of everlasting life.

“The habit of being happy” suggest a sincere seeking to know more of life’s purpose, and the pursuit of it, with faith to follow a loving Father’s counsel and to keep His commandments.”

“Only let me make my life simple and straight.”