Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways. . . . Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
Ps. cxxviii. I, 2.

WE think it a gallant thing, to be fluttering up to heaven with our wings of knowledge and speculation; whereas the highest mystery of a divine life here, and of perfect happiness hereafter, consists in nothing but mere obedience to the Divine will. Happiness is nothing but that inward sweet delight, which will arise from the harmonious agreement between our wills and the will of God. There is nothing in the whole world able to do us good or hurt, but God, and our own will: neither riches nor poverty, nor disgrace nor honor, nor life nor death, nor angels nor devils; but willing, or not willing, as we ought.
Ralph Cudworth.

The one misery of man is self-will, the one secret of blessedness is the conquest over our own wills. To yield them up to God is rest and peace. What disturbs us in this world is not “trouble,” but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates, and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by external things.
Alexander Maclaren.