--- title: "Happiness, Tithing, and Gratitude" date: 2025-11-10T09:13:00-07:00 author: Matt Bloomfield canonical_url: "https://www.mlj.one/church/talks/happiness-tithing-and-gratitude" section: Blog --- [ ← Church Talks ](https://www.mlj.one/church/talks) Talk November 10, 2025 # Happiness, Tithing, and Gratitude I gave this talk on November 12th, 2023 in the Snowflake 11th Ward Sacrament Meeting at the Temple View Chapel in Snowflake, Arizona, per an assignment from President Todd Burk. --- ## Intro There are a lot of people who seek happiness, but the search for happiness is paradoxical. If you search only for happiness you may never find it. Happiness is not a destination; it’s a reward for doing the hard things in life. In a 2022 study, the following statistics were published: - 45 percent of people have not felt true happiness for more than two years and 25 percent don't know, or have forgotten, what it means to feel truly happy. - 88 percent are looking for new experiences to make them smile and laugh. People are prioritizing health (80 percent), personal connections (79 percent), and experiences (53 percent) to gain happiness. - More than half (53 percent) wish money could buy happiness, with 78 percent willing to pay a premium for true happiness. - 89 percent attempted to find happiness in online shopping during the pandemic and while 47 percent said that receiving packages made them happy, 12 percent struggled to remember the purchases they had made online. ## Thesis Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, and, because he created us, he knows the ultimate recipe for true and lasting happiness. And it’s a lot cheaper than making splurge purchases on Amazon! In 2 Nephi 2:25, Lehi states, “Men are, that they might have joy”. A few chapters later, in 2 Nephi 5:27, Nephi declares, “And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness.” Which I believe indicates that they were living the gospel. Happiness is not something that is attained by having the latest material possessions - it’s a result of denying ourselves, following the commandments, and expressing and feeling gratitude. ## Denying ourselves Matthew 16:24-25: Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. What does it mean to deny ourselves, and how do we do it? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as, “to not allow oneself to enjoy things or to have the things one wants.” That sounds a lot like some religious practices we do! Fasting, for example, where we deny ourselves food and drink for 24 hours or two meals. What an intensely physical practice to lead us to a spiritual result. What’s another instance of denying ourselves? The Word of Wisdom? How about the Law of Chastity? My favorite one? The Law of Tithing. It’s one thing to deny ourselves food for 24 hours - but we can always eat all those calories later, right? But it’s much, much harder to deny ourselves the money we feel we have earned. But perhaps that feeling is part of the difficulty. It is often taught that this money was Heavenly Father’s all along and we are just giving him what is his. It reminds me of the economic theory called the Endowment Effect. Most notably captured by a classroom study at Cornell University, the Endowment Effect is the term for how you value things more once they are in your possession. You see it with kids all the time - once you give them something, the value increases immensely and they can’t imagine parting with it. The study at Cornell used mugs. Half of the class was given mugs and the other half was not. When they asked the students at what price they valued the mugs, those with mugs valued them at over twice the value as those who did not have them. Perhaps that is what makes tithing a particularly difficult principle for so many of us. For whatever reason, these difficult experiences are necessary for our “finding ourselves” as disciples of Jesus Christ. As the author of the book, *The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry,* put it, “We can’t fathom a practice that comes at life-change through our stomachs. We’re so used to books, and podcasts, and university lectures, and teachings at church that we often forget we’re not just brains on legs; we’re whole people. Wholistic, integrated, complex, and full of a dizzying amount of energy. So our apprenticeships to Jesus have to be whole-person endeavors: mind & body.” ## Commandments Bring Happiness King Benjamin taught that those who keep the commands of God are “blessed and happy … in all things, both temporal and spiritual.” I have found this to be true in my life, because commandments point us to Christ. ### **Faith** - Faith and hope are so intermingled it’s impossible to separate them. It’s through faith that we obtain hope, which is one of our first sources of happiness. - **Uchtdorf, Oct 2008:** Hope is one leg of a three-legged stool, together with faith and charity. These three stabilize our lives regardless of the rough or uneven surfaces we might encounter at the time. … Hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness. Its absence—when this desire of our heart is delayed—can make “the heart sick.” ### **Repentance** - Repentance gives us the ability to remove the burden of sin from our lives. This relief brings peace, pulling us closer to the Savior, and ultimately making us happy. - When Alma the Younger described his repentance he told others, “There Can Be Nothing So Exquisite and Sweet as Was My Joy” ### **Baptism** - entering into a covenant that gives you a framework for what is allowed and what is not. Talk about a toddler and how they need rules to stay safe. *Expound on what pediatrician told us when Adam born* ### **Gift of the Holy Ghost** - As we strive to live worthy of the Holy Ghost’s companionship we strive to eliminate violence, anger, loss of temper, argument, and other destructive ideas from our lives. - When we feel the Holy Ghost we feel a happiness ever-present in our lives. - *Could share about Joy’s experience - removed the constant highs and lows* ## Gratitude We know from the results of many psychological studies that gratitude naturally brings us happiness - In an April 2014 General Conference talk, Elder Uchtdorf shared: “Our loving Heavenly Father knows that choosing to develop a spirit of gratitude will bring us true joy and great happiness.” Further, Ray Huntington, in a 2015 BYU Devotional, explained that grateful people were 25 percent happier than their ungrateful counterparts and felt “closer and more connected to people, had better relationships, were more likely to help others, felt less lonely, felt less depressed, slept better, and were more pleasant to be around.” Those sound like blessings I could use! ### **Well, then back to tithing** - - According to the gospel topics on tithing: **By paying tithing, Church members show their gratitude to God for their blessings and their resolve to trust in the Lord rather than in material things.** - Gratitude leads to happiness as just discussed What are some blessings of paying our tithing? - Budgeting - Blessed with what you need. - Bike stolen - My parents’ childhood - Confidence in the Lord's promises ## Conclusion As we can see, the Lord knows the ultimate recipe for lasting happiness in our lives. If we seek only happiness we may never find it, but if we seek to follow the Lord’s council, denying ourselves, obeying the commandments, and having an attitude of gratitude we will find happiness and joy in our discipleship. I testify that the Lord wants us be happy; that the gospel is here to bless us and our families. I say these things in the name…