Happiness – Proverbs 16:20b – Highway of Holiness

Blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.

Have you been searching for the secret to lasting happiness? Praise God, you need search no further. Happiness is within your grasp.

Proverbs 16:20 encapsulated the way to find happiness, which Jesus Christ proclaimed on the mountaintop.[1] He teaches us today through His Word just as He taught the multiples when He stood before them that happy is the one who puts his faith in Him, who loves Him enough to shed his selfish demeanor and take on His joy-producing qualities: humility, gentleness, purity, a reconciling spirit, righteousness, and mercy. He teaches us that happiness is the prize won by those who, out of their commitment to Him, persevere, clinging to Him when tried, hoping in Him when disappointed, and standing with Him when saddened, those who steadfastly walk with Him in anticipation of the day when He will approve them and grant them the crown of life.[2]

Jesus offers happiness to those who trust in Him with their whole hearts. He does not reserve it for people who have that which our society judges as necessary for happiness. Rather, happiness blossoms in those who love God enough to believe in His goodness, to receive His bounty with grateful hearts, and to choose joy while walking with Him through the valleys as well as on the mountaintops.[3]

This God-breathed happiness is worth striving after. It is enduring, not like the shallow, temporary pleasures that accompany worldly pursuits. It flourishes in the sunshine wisdom streams down upon it.[4] It blooms out of deep-rooted character grown in a well-tended garden, which the Lord plants in grace and nourishes by love. Suffering cannot disturb its hearty flowers for they grow in holy soil.[5] Life’s hurricanes and floods cannot uproot or wash it away, nor can drought reduce it to straggly stalks, for God encircles it with a hedge of protection and waters it with His Word.

Full and rich, beautiful and fragrant, happiness carries the scent of Jesus beyond the one who possesses it, attracting others to the garden. It stirs within them a desire to share in its blessings and to know the One from whom it originates. It creates in them a longing for the spiritual contentment they see in those who follow Jesus.

Receive happiness in its fullest measure.[6] Base your joy on nothing less than your faith in God, and you will have happiness that nothing can take away from you, for happy are they who trust in the Lord, those surrounded by the Lord’s unfailing love.[7]

[1] Matthew 5:2-12

[2] James 1:12

[3] John 13:17

[4] Proverbs 3:18

[5] 1 Peter 3:14

[6] John 17:13

[7] Psalm 32:10