If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and

The devout missionary David Brainerd, whose brief life burned with faith and fervor, once declared: “If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.” These words rise from a soul that had tasted both despair and divine peace. In them lies the wisdom of one who learned that true happiness is not found in the fleeting comforts of the earth, but in the eternal constancy of the Divine Source. Brainerd reminds us that the world’s gifts fade, its promises falter, but the joy that springs from God endures beyond time, beyond loss, beyond even life itself.

To understand this truth, one must look at the man behind the words. David Brainerd, born in 1718, lived only to the age of twenty-nine, yet his life became a beacon of spiritual dedication. As a missionary to the Native American tribes of the early American colonies, he endured isolation, illness, hunger, and rejection. His journals — filled with anguish, longing, and transcendent hope — reveal a soul constantly at war with its own frailty, yet constantly upheld by faith. When he speaks of hoping for happiness from God, it is not the comfortable belief of one untouched by hardship, but the hard-won wisdom of a man who had lost everything and still found joy in divine nearness.

Brainerd’s words echo the timeless struggle of humankind — the longing for happiness in a world that cannot provide it. Many seek joy in wealth, fame, love, or power, only to find that each withers in their grasp. The pleasures of the world are like reflections in water: glittering but insubstantial. They vanish when one reaches for them. Brainerd, through suffering, came to see that the source of lasting happiness must be unchanging — and only God, infinite and eternal, could offer such constancy. The world gives happiness as a loan; God gives it as an inheritance.

History offers countless mirrors of this truth. Consider Saint Augustine, who in his youth sought fulfillment in every earthly pleasure — in knowledge, desire, and ambition — until he realized that all his striving left his heart restless. Only when he turned to God did he find peace, writing his immortal words: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Like Brainerd, Augustine discovered that the deepest thirst of the soul cannot be quenched by the streams of the world, but only by the living waters of the Spirit.

Brainerd’s insight is not a call to reject the world entirely, but to see it rightly — not as the source of happiness, but as the shadow of it. The beauty of nature, the love of others, the joys of work and art — these are gifts, but not gods. They are reflections of divine goodness meant to draw us upward, not distractions to chain us downward. The tragedy of human life begins when one worships the reflection and forgets the Light that made it shine. When Brainerd urges us to “hope from God,” he is teaching the soul to anchor itself in eternity rather than in the shifting tides of circumstance.

This truth is especially powerful in times of loss or despair. When the world withdraws its comforts — when friends depart, fortunes crumble, or health fails — what remains? Those who have built their happiness on worldly things find themselves adrift. But those who have rooted their joy in the divine remain unshaken. They may grieve, but they are not destroyed; they may weep, but they still sing. For their hope does not come from what can be taken, but from the One who gives without end. Brainerd’s own peace amid illness and isolation stands as proof that even when the body fades, the soul that rests in God shines brighter.

So, my child, take this teaching to heart: seek your happiness not from the world, but through it — from God, whose presence fills all things. Love the world as a reflection of His goodness, but do not mistake it for the source. Let every sunrise remind you of His faithfulness, every joy remind you of His love, and every sorrow draw you nearer to His strength. Hope, not in the fragile gifts of time, but in the eternal Giver. For the world’s joys are as the morning dew — they sparkle briefly, then vanish — but the joy that comes from God endures like the sun, rising anew in every heart that dares to trust Him.