Peace and happiness have many variables.

We are not happy when we feel we do not have enough and then burdened if we have too much. We fret over not having enough money or worry about what we will do if we have too much money. Most of us do not have the latter problem.

We fret over not enough space or how we care for too much space. We accumulate and store up in our barns and build bigger barns to store up more stuff. We then do not know what we will do with all the stuff.

How much does it take to bring you peace and make you happy? Can you be happy in a one-room dwelling? Does it take a 25-room house to make you feel good? How many cars do you need to make you feel satisfied? Or is satisfaction only a remotely impossible concept?

Many years ago, one popular song lamented, “I can’t get no satisfaction.”

Satisfaction and happiness may be claimed for a season. Possibly you are satisfied with your vocation, athletic accomplishments, family life, parenting success, fulfillment of life goals and ambitions? Often, we are, but then those seasons pass. Careers end, athletic contests become history, and retirement comes with memories that fade further and further into the past.

Too often most of us can look back and wonder. “What if?” we may say. The problem with “what if?” is that it does not change anything. If it is in the past, you cannot relive it or change it, regardless of how great or how bad you were.

All we have for certain is today.

Even today is iffy.

Since today is all we really have, it is best not to mess it up by constantly looking over our shoulders. You cannot go forward always looking back.

In the Bible there was a man named Lot. He and his wife were told not to look back at Sodom and Gomorrah. She did and turned into a pillar of salt.

Looking back has a way of doing that to all of us as we become immobilized in time.

What does it take to make you happy? Someone to love and someone who loves you? A few family members to care for who also care for you? Enough money to pay the light bill and keep food on the table? Something to do during the day that you enjoy? The only person who can answer these questions is you because only you know what it really takes to make you happy.

Happiness is very much happenstance. Things change every day: health, sickness, the stock market, families, jobs and hobbies. Friends and loved ones move away or die. Life is always changing.

God never changes. Happiness may vary throughout the day or week, but the joy and peace that come with faith in God and a focus on Him are something the world cannot give or take away.

Keep this verse in mind this day, regardless of whether you feel happy or if you are down and blue: “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” (Isaiah 26:3)

Dr. Glenn Mollette is the author of “Uncommon Sense” and 13 other books.