PREVIEW: Everybody wants to be happy! You do, and so do I. So how do we find true and lasting happiness? Well, the Psalms — which, may I remind you, is God’s inerrant, authoritative, eternal Word — tell us that happiness comes by completely, deliberately, and consistently ordering our life according to the full counsel of the Holy Scripture. Not just a favorite verse here and there, mind you, or a Bible reading when it strikes the fancy, but through a “day and night” absorption of the whole “law of God.” Furthermore, true blessedness and lasting joy come by completely, deliberately, and consistently rejecting the humanistic definition of and path to happiness. The Psalmist calls for a complete ordering of our life around the Word of God — “meditating on it day and night.” That is truly what will produce the joyful, blessed, and happy life!

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 1:1-2

Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night

Every human being who has ever walked this planet has this in common: The desire to be happy. In fact, our most revered national document, the Declaration of Independence, proclaims that the pursuit of happiness is our unalienable right, universally endowed by the Creator himself.

Now we can pursue happiness until we are blue in the face, and most of us do, but there is just one way we will ever attain it: By following God’s “roadmap.” The Psalmist called that roadmap “the law of the Lord.” Today, we call it the Bible.

In this opening song from the songbook of the human race, the Psalms, we are told that happiness comes by completely, deliberately, and consistently ordering our life according to the full counsel of God’s Word. Not just a favorite verse here and there, mind you, or a Bible reading when it strikes the fancy, but through a “day and night” absorption of the whole “law of God.” Furthermore, true blessedness and lasting joy come by completely, deliberately, and consistently rejecting the humanistic definition of and path to happiness.

In Psalm 1, the Psalmist calls for a complete ordering of our life around the Word of God — “meditating on it day and night.” So here is the most important question you will be asked today: Are you? Are you reading God’s Word regularly, and not just reading it, but absorbing it? Are you not just absorbing it, but are you figuring out ways to apply it to your daily life — your thinking, your situations, your responses, your decisions, and your planning?

May I suggest that before you do anything else — read the headlines, surf your social media platforms, check your email, or have coffee with your posse, which is the modern equivalent of “WALK in step with the wicked or STAND in the way that sinners take or SIT in the company of mockers” (NIV) with anyone else before you get counsel from God — that you carve out time and then ruthlessly guard that time to read, absorb and apply God’s Word. And then discipline yourself to bring what you have read back to mind at various parts of the day to make sure your thoughts, actions, interactions, responses, and accomplishments have been true to the plumbline of God’s Word.

By the way, when “meditating day and night” on Scripture becomes the “organic” practice of your life, the discipline of daily Bible reading will have turned into the delight of practicing the presence of God. And when you practice the presence of God, you will experience the presence of God. That is truly what the joyful, blessed, and happy life is all about.

“ The Bible redirects my will, cleanses my emotions, enlightens my mind, and quickens my total being. — E. STANLEY JONES