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“Thou art miserable wherever thou art, and which way soever thou turnest thyself, unless thou dost turn thyself to God.”

Every man naturally seeks to avoid misery and enjoy happiness, but our methods of doing so are all too often entirely off-base. For do we not seek to avoid misery and enjoy happiness by indulging in the pleasures of this world and ignoring the delights of the next world?

“O senseless people, and infidels at heart, who lie buried so deep in earthly things as to relish nothing but the things of the flesh. Miserable wretches! they will in the end find to their cost how vile a nothing that was which they so much loved.”

How true are these words! What are these earthly things but miserable creations like ourselves–dying a slow death in this prison that is our planet. Remember that we were not created for this world. We were created for the Creator of this world. It is in God, then, that we will find true happiness. Misery–and misery alone–is to be found in the dying things of this world.

Since earthly man can never completely escape these miserable worldly things, it becomes quite clear that we are in a state of banishment. This is the only proper view to have of our temporary home. Despise this short and miserable life–which is really nothing more than a slow death–and long for the next life. Only there is man never in misery and always happy.

“Lose not, brother, thy confidence of going forward to spiritual things; there is yet time, the hour is not yet past. Why wilt thou put off thy resolutions from day to day? Arise, and begin this very moment, and say: now is the time for doing, and now is the time to fight; now is the proper time to amend my life.”