NOBODY CAN MAKE ANYBODY HAPPY
Friday of the Second week in Advent
My dear encountered couples:
Have you ever known people nothing could satisfy? You do this, they say they want that. You do that, they say they want this. You try to make them happy, you try to please them, but try as you may you strike out every time. Nobody can make anybody else happy! We all have in our hands the reigns of our own happiness but not the happiness of others. Our gospel today reflects that point.
God sent John the Baptist to preach to and alert the people. The leaders of the Jews did not accept him. God sent his own Son to teach and love the people. The leaders of the Jews did not accept him either.
Though the two used very different approaches, John the fire and brimstone method of threatening, Jesus the calm and soothing method of forgiveness and love, both men were criticized, ridiculed, and condemned by the leaders of the Jews. Neither could satisfy nor make those people happy.
Satisfaction and happiness are not something that can be imposed from without, it must be engendered from within. Our attitudes, our desires, our expectations decide our amount and quality of happiness. We are only able to determine our own. God will help us with them, but he will not force his attitudes or desires upon us.
“John appeared neither eating nor drinking,” Jesus said, “and people say, ‘He is mad!’ The Son of Man appeared eating and drinking, and they say, ‘This one is a glutton and drunkard, a lover of tax collectors and those outside the law!”
Are you dissatisfied? Look inside yourself for the reason, not to others.
