This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3:17.

You will never be truly happy until you know your heavenly Father believes that about you too! Trouble is, we humans search for happiness in the wrong places.

Some Swedish psychologists studied 1000 happy people. Some of them were old, two were blind, one had an incurable disease. But the great majority of them were free from tension and fear, they enjoyed friendships with other people, and they had a goal in life.

Money, intelligence, or fame won't make you happy. Richard Burton tried to drink himself to death. Voltaire wrote 'I wish I had never been born'. Gould, the American millionaire, when he was dying, said 'I suppose I am the most miserable devil on earth'. No, being rich or famous won't - in itself - guarantee happiness. (A celebrity is someone who works all his life to become famous enough to be recognised, and then goes around in dark glasses so no one will know who he is!)

You are unique - an unrepeatable miracle of God's creation. And he does not love anybody else more than he loves you. (And, moreover, nothing you can do - or be - could cause him to love you anymore than he loves you now!)

'God so loved the world' - and I'm in it! Thank you Lord. Amen.