The Music & the Spoken Word broadcast airs live via TV, radio, and internet stream on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. mountain time. For information on other airtimes, visit “Airing Schedules” at musicandthespokenword.org.

Music

Conductors: Mack Wilberg and Randall Kempton
Organist: Brian Mathias
Announcer: Lloyd D. Newell
Special Guests: BYU-Idaho Collegiate Singers

“I Think the World Is Glorious”
Music: Alexander Schreiner
Lyrics: Anna Johnson
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

“I Will Follow God’s Plan”¹
Music and lyrics: Vanja Y. Watkins
Arrangement: Nathan Hofheins

Festive Trumpet Tune (organ solo)
Music: David German

“Sheep May Safely Graze”
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Lyrics: Salomon Franck
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

“When We Love”
Music: Elaine Hagenberg
Lyrics: Charles Anthony Silvestri

“Unclouded Day”
Music and lyrics: J. K. Alwood
Arrangement: Shawn Kirchner

“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”
African American spiritual
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

1. From the album Teach Me to Walk in the Light.

The Spoken Word

Cultivating Happiness

It probably goes without saying that everyone wants to be happy. It seems logical, then, that we would spend most of our time and energy in search of happiness and that the harder we search, the happier we’ll be. But it turns out that this isn’t necessarily the case.

Professors at Brigham Young University suggest a better approach: build a meaningful life and let happiness find you. They cite research showing that obsessing over happiness ironically tends to leave people feeling less happy. One professor observed: “We don’t chase happiness. It’s something we cultivate, and then it can emerge as a natural consequence of living well.”¹

So perhaps happiness is not a chase or a pursuit but a creation. It’s not a formula but more like a flower that we cultivate and nourish, and then we rejoice in the miracle of a glorious bloom. Happiness is not something we can force but something we invite simply by living a good life.

And what does it mean to live a good life? Consider the simple truths these people have discovered:

Female: I find true happiness when I worry less about myself and more about others. If I can find someone to help, some small act of kindness I can give, or some way I can lift a burden for someone else—that’s when I find happiness, or when happiness finds me!

Male: When I try to take care of myself physically—when I take care of my body as a gift from God—I also feel better mentally and emotionally. And when I take care of myself emotionally and spiritually, I just feel better physically. It’s all interconnected.

Female: I find that I’m more at peace and contented when I sincerely try to keep the two great commandments: love God and love others with all my heart. That’s it. It’s like I’m opening my heart to happiness, and it always comes.

Could it be that simple—that happiness finds us as we stop looking for it? It takes faith to exchange pursuing happiness for cultivating it day by day, little by little. But then, faith has always preceded miracles, including the miracle of happiness.

1.  Jared S. Warren, in Emily Smurthwaite Edmonds, “Let Joy Find You,” Y Magazine (Winter 2023), magazine.byu.edu.