What is happiness? Can you define it? Or can you merely describe it?

The Declaration of Independence states that God endowed man with the right to pursue happiness, and today, many people are doing just that. The tragedy is that most people cannot tell you what happiness really is. They can merely describe a situation in which they believe they would find themselves to be happy.

The blessing is that God not only has given us the gift of happiness, but has also explained through His word how to unwrap that gift.

In Psalm 1, the Bible says “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the unGodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”

That word “blessed” can also be translated “happy.” To understand what it means to be blessed or happy, we have to understand what those literal words mean. “Blessed” was translated from a Hebrew word that means “to be confident and secure.”

And when you think about the ways people describe the happiness they pursue, doesn’t that definition hold up?

How many times have you heard someone say, “I just want to be with my family.”

“I just want my kids to be safe and healthy.”

“All I need is a roof over my head and food in the fridge.”

People save for retirement so they can achieve a status where they don’t have to grind at a 40-60 hour per week job in order to make ends meet. People dream of winning the lottery, not so they can buy multiple luxuries, but for the idea that they will no longer have to worry about money and deal with financial insecurity.

The sad part is, both of those avenues to happiness often fail. How many lottery winners actually go on to “happily ever after?” Very few. Most will tell you winning the lottery actually ruined their lives.

Retirement accounts can be wiped out by market crashes, company collapses, or divorce decrees. Furthermore, even if you make it to retirement with a healthy balance, often the fixed income from that account fails to keep up with inflation.

So, is happiness unattainable?

Quite the opposite.

Psalm 1 actually gives us the formula to attain true happiness, true confidence and security.

Psalm 1:1, which I quoted above, tells us exactly how to undermine happiness. Happiness is undermined when we walk in the counsel of the unGodly, stand in the way of sinners and sit in the seat of the scornful.

Walking in the counsel of the unGodly means to follow and live by the advice of unGodly people. It is important to remember that Godliness has less to do with personal morality, and more to do with aligning oneself with God’s teachings.

One can be faithful to their spouse, have integrity in business, but have a heart in rebellion against God, thus rendering themselves unGodly.

When taking the advice of others, it is important to make sure that advice lines up with scripture. Following a course of action that contradicts scripture, even when you can logically and emotionally justify it, leads to disaster. Trust me on this one.

Following a course of action that is contrary to scripture, even when others validate and understand it, will lead to emotional and Spiritual devastation.

Standing in the way of sinners means to exalt and promote yourself the way sinners do. To stand, or to have standing, means to have prestige and honor. It means to have a right to something, and to belong.

We all want these things. The problem to happiness is when we seek these things the way the world seeks them. When we self-promote out of pride, we are hindering our own happiness.

Scripture teaches that the standing we have that brings true happiness is the standing we have in the Lord through the Gospel.

And sitting in the seat of the scornful means to rest in anger and bitterness. The poster children for this category are the political commentators we see on cable news. Do any of these people even appear to have tasted happiness?

When you sit back, look for flaws, and complain, you will never be happy.

So, now that we have covered how not to be happy, how do we achieve happiness? Psalm 1 answers that question in the next two verses.

Psalm 1:2-3 says, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

Notice the man’s source of happiness. It’s in the law of the LORD (which is basically scripture, the Bible.) This man finds confidence and security in the Lord, and thinks about him all day and night.

If this sounds boring to you, that’s a pretty good indication that you’ve fallen into the categories listed in verse 1.

Getting your mind into the scripture goes beyond just rehashing the basic fundamentals of the faith and the do’s and don’ts of life. It also means contemplating God’s character, how He interacts with man, and by doing so, how He interacts with you.

The alternative is to spend the day focused on your anxieties and challenges in life. Either that, or trying to distract yourself from them through movies, entertainment, social media, retail therapy, excessive eating, or substance abuse. If we’re honest with ourselves, this has never worked, and has always robbed us of happiness.

On the other hand, you can get your mind into the scriptures, learn of God, and then face your challenges with the confidence and security of knowing that the eternal creator of all things is controlling what you cannot. And, you’ll have the peace of knowing that He has good will toward you. He loves you.

Do you have family problems? You can stay focused on those problems all day, or you can consider how God brought Abraham, Jacob, David and others through their family problems. Maybe you can consider the testimony of a Christian friend who went through their own family problems, and how God brought them through that.

And as God gives you hope through that meditation, you don’t go into a state of denial over your family problems, but you can learn to go through them with peace. And, by thinking on how scripture teaches you to work through those problems, you will be able to see those problems through to a happy conclusion.

Psalm 1 goes on to describe what it looks like when we do this. Verse 3 says the blessed (happy) man is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

The picture painted here is of a tree planted by the river with a healthy root system that is continually supplied with life-giving water from the river. That tree is solid, produces fruit, and doesn’t wither.

Likewise, when we stay plugged into our source of life and happiness, we too experience Spiritual health and well-being, to the point that we bear fruit and make an impact to this world. And when that happens, we find confidence and security.

Our source of life and happiness is the Lord. As that tree’s root system gravitates toward the rivers of water, our minds should gravitate toward the Lord, toward our source of life and happiness.

This is where we will find stability and prosperity. This is where we will find happiness.