The psalmist is pursuing happiness. Everyone I know wants to be happy. The psalmist shares what he has discovered about the pursuit of happiness. He recognizes that not everyone is happy. Maybe one of the reasons that so many are not finding happiness is because we are not sure what happiness is. We think happiness is something we own or getting what we want. I love what Stewart Briscoe said about the pursuit of happiness, “For many people happiness is dependent upon their happenings. If their happenings are happening the way they want, then they are happy. But if the happenings don’t happen to happen the way they happen to want their happenings to happen, they are unhappy.” In other words if things are going the way we want them to go, we are happy, and if they are not going our way, we are unhappy. Most people equate happiness with the state of “feel good.” The psalmist reminds us that true happiness is found when we root and ground ourselves in the word of God and when we begin to live to please God. Real happiness and real joy comes from the Lord, from Jesus Christ. More of Him and less of you, that’s the road to happiness.
– Dr. Tim Thompson