Anyone who knows me, knows that I love to read. However, I'm not a big fan of reading for entertainment and prefer reading for learning, knowledge, and self-betterment because I am far from the person I want to be and need a ton of help-- and I mean that seriously.
I love Bryson's "nap time" and "bed time" because these times give me some "me time" where I can just sit at my desk (a.k.a. my drafting table) and study without the cute little distraction Bryson can be at times. Tonight I was studying C.S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity and wanted to share a paragraph that I fell in love with! I loved it so much that I had to stop Mike in the middle of his computer work (he was buying domain names or something) so I could share it with him and also loved it so much that I wanted to share it with the brave few of you willing to take the time to read all of this. Here it is:"The reason why [trying to find happiness in anything other than God] can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." (Mere Christianity, page 50)
It seems so often that we try to achieve happiness in all the wrong places: through television, popularity, success, fame, friends, clothes, money, the house we live in, the car we drive, etc, etc, etc... but no matter how much of that we gain in this life, it can never bring true happiness. True happiness can only come through Him because it is of Him.
A young man bore his testimony in our ward this past Sunday that really impressed me. He said, "...I read the scriptures each day because they make me happy. I live the gospel because living it makes me happy..." I was so impressed with him because he's only about 17 or 18 years old but has already discovered the one thing people search their whole lives for: the source of true happiness!
I love C.S. Lewis because he has such a simple, applicable, and understandable way of presenting truth in a way that just makes sense. He's pretty darn cool--so cool, that I just couldn't keep from sharing his "coolness" with you tonight. And those are my thoughts. I'm done now.
