The Good Life
What man is there who desires life and loves many days,
that he may see good?
Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it. —Psalm 34:12,14
The good life is the good life. Put another way, happiness is doing the right thing, something wise men and women have always known.
The world is constantly telling us, in one way or another, that happiness is doings things our way, but that's a lie. It only leads to emptiness, anxiety and heartache. (W.H. Auden writes of children, "lost in a haunted wood, / Children afraid of the night / Who have never been happy or good.")
Happiness is doing things God’s way, a fact that can be empirically verified every day. Just try it and you'll see. That's what David means when he says, "taste and see that the Lord is good” (34:8a).
“Seeing is believing,” we say. Show me a proof and I'll believe it. That's how we know stuff in this world.
God puts it the other way around. "Believing is seeing" ("Taste and then you will see.") Trust Me, take Me at My word—do the very next thing I ask you to do—and you will see. I will give you grace to do the right thing and more: I will give you Myself, the only source of enduring happiness..
"Oh, the blessedness (happiness) of those who take refuge in Him!" (34:8b)
David Roper
8.14.17
