Happiness is...

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play,

All the conventions conspire

To make this fort assume

The furniture of home;

Lest we should see where we are, 

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

—W.H. Auden 

David writes, "What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good... Let him turn away from evil and do good."—Psalm 34:12,14. 

The good life is the good life. 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 doing our thing, but that's a gigantic lie. It only leads to emptiness, anxiety and heartache. 

Happiness is doing God's thing, a fact that can be empirically verified every day. Just try it and you'll see, which is what David meant when he said, "taste and see that the Lord is good” (34:8a).

We say, "Seeing is believing." Show me a proof and I will believe it. That's how we know stuff in this world. 

God puts things the other way 'round. "Believing is seeing" ("Taste and then you will see.") Trust God, take Him at his word, do the very next thing he asks you to do, and you will see good. If you ask for his help he will give you grace to do the right thing and more: He will give you himself, the only source of enduring happiness and peace.

"Oh, the blessedness (happiness) of those who take refuge in Him!" (34:8b)

David Roper

2.13.18