Happiness is a Gift of Patience 

Was asked by someone today why a specific promise given in priesthood Blessing hadn’t been fulfilled. A promise of much happiness in this life had been given and most of that which he had experienced was unhappiness. I explained that in order to know what is happiness the opposite is sometimes experienced first. Else, how could happiness be understood? I used the scriptures taken from the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants to illustrate my point.

2^nd Nephi 2:11

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility."

Doctrine and Covenants 29:39

"And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet—"

I said to him that it was easier, not more desirable, to understand happiness by experiencing it’s opposite. Then, when happiness comes to us we will be able to appreciate it more.

There are probably more and better explanations for the delay of happiness to some, but the ones I used above seemed most logical for the moment.