Seeking Happiness and Joy

At Institute tonight, we talked briefly about the account of the woman who came in and washed Jesus' feet with her tears drying them with her hair and then annointing His feet which is found in Luke 7:37-50 . In the midst of this washing, Jesus shares a parable of two debtors being forgiven their debts. The one who had the greater debt forgiven loved the master more. The question then is how does the one with the smaller debt become filled with as much love as the one with the greater debt without acruing more debt (sins)? I immediately thought of the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 . The son who remained home with the father and did as he should was jealous of the prodigal son whose return was grandly celebrated. It is easy to be like second son and question the father why our obedience is not celebrated. We don't experience the same amount of joy upon the embrace of the father if we get caught up in the moment, especially in jealousy. In response to the son...

I participated in the devotional tonight in my New Testament Institute class. I sang, "Close Enough to Touch" by Kenneth Cope and shared a little excerpt from a talk I gave over the summer. This woman, whose story is told briefly in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, had an issue of blood for 12 years. She had sought out numerous physicians and used all that she had to seek a cure. None had cured her; her condition was now worse. Her faith brought her to seek out Jesus. “For she said within herself, if I but touch his garment, I shall be whole.”( Matthew 9:21 ) She pressed her way through the crowd that was following Jesus to touch the hem of His garment. Elder Neuenschwander in his April 2008 General Conference address described this crowd. “I picture the crowd itself. It must have been fairly large, as people were pressing in on Jesus. It might have even been a noisy crowd, as people pushed and shoved trying to get a better look at Him. I wonder why they were there. Most, I think,...