How to be happy is the focus of so much effort and exploration. We become too easily preoccupied and fixated with the pursuit of what we imagine happiness to be. But the human sense of having achieved a state of happiness is in stark contrast to the Psalmist’s assertion that happiness is for the one “whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.”1 “Why yes,” one might say; “God helped me get to where I am, and I am happy!” But this help of which the Psalmist speaks is not assistance as a co-pilot provides, it is the sense of a military rescue. So, what qualifies the God of Jacob to be my source of happiness? He made everything (including me), and He is unfailingly good. He is the necessary being for my sustenance and my satisfaction.
There is a reason why the apostle Paul resigned himself to “boast in the things that show my weakness.”2 The delusion of self-sufficiency has a strong pull on the human heart, and people in the church are not immune to it. Christ issued a strong warning to a first century congregation - “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”3 Those who think they have found their happiness in created things are oppressed, hungry, bound, and blind.
We were made by Him and for Him. That means He can do what the creature and things made cannot – satisfy our longings, set us free, make wrongs right, and open our understanding to see what is. The one who walks with God knows His affectionate care freeing him from the crushing burden of performance-based acceptance. The sojourner who feels she does not fit in under the sun feels God’s watchful embrace. When I feel vulnerable and at the end of my resources, then I can know the sustaining grace of my Creator/Redeemer.
So the happy person is one who feels secure and satisfied in the One who came near; the One who draws you near – even in the broken chaos of your surroundings. And as I rest in the embrace of the One who is unfailingly good, I become a conduit of His goodness.
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1Psalm 146:5
22 Corinthians 11:30
3Revelation 3:17
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