The greatest joys are to be found in creating.  This is the great lesson and open secret that God has tried to teach His children from the beginning.

The first commandments that God gave to the first man and first woman all dealt with creating, and all were designed to bring happiness and ultimate joy to each person who learned the secret.  Adam was commanded to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, to tend the garden, and to keep a book of remembrance—or in other words to raise a family, to work and to write.

The greatest joys of all are to be found in creating a family, having children, molding them into responsible citizens, and seeing them teach their own children the same lessons of responsibility, decency, industriousness, honesty, and morality that they were taught by their parents.  We take joy in our posterity when we’ve striven to be good parents and see our children trying to imitate us.  We take joy in our posterity when we see our family multiplying, and increasing in righteousness.  It’s a satisfaction that is like no other.

Satisfaction and joy are found in a job well done.  My wife brought to me a little, white dress with eyelets and a pink sash that she’d created out of scraps for our toddler granddaughter.  She brought it to me to admire.  It truly was a thing of beauty.  Marjorie had visualized it in her mind; assembled some disorganized materials; cut, sewed, and crafted; and ultimately created a thing of beauty.  She went back to it again and again to admire what she’d done.  She brought it to me so that I could do likewise.  I could admire it, too, but not to the degree that its creator could.  She knew each stitch, tuck and fold; and the pains, challenges and labor that had been required to bring the project to fruition.  She could look at it and see that it was good.

The Creation was no different:  “And I, God, saw everything that I had made, and, behold, all things which I had made were very good.”  (Moses 2:31).

Pity the person who has never learned how to work, who has never finished a difficult project of bringing something into the world that didn’t exist before.  There is joy in building a fence and being able to look at the completed product and admire how straight and tight it is.

There is joy in writing a poem that has a perfected meter, rhyme, perfectly placed words, and a message that clearly comes through.  Its author reads it again and again, marveling that he has been able to actually accomplish what he’s done.

The woodworker who creates a beautiful piece of furniture from a pile of ugly boards, and the author who completes a book, experience a sense of joy and satisfaction that the indolent can never understand.

My daughter-in-law makes wedding cakes.  Each one takes days to create.  The end result is breath-taking.  It’s admired by all.  Pictures are taken of it so that it can always be remembered, and then someone reluctantly cuts into it.

A well-ordered and well-kept home is a great source of satisfaction to its creator.  So are a well-set table and a painstakingly-planned and delicious meal.  Compliments are gratefully, and rightfully, received.

The feeling of accomplishment that a musician feels after perfectly playing a difficult, long-practiced piece can only be exceeded by the feeling that its composer felt when he finally sat back and pronounced his composition finished and “good.”

There are people in the world who have never experienced these feelings.  There are people who tear down rather than build.  There are lazy people who never “do,” but who expect things to be done for them.

Every parent wants his children to be happy, and to experience joy.  That is God’s ultimate goal, too.  God’s children, and our children, will experience joy as they learn to work and to create.  Teaching them to do so is the greatest gift we can give them.