A Better Kind of Happiness

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
—Matthew 5:6

The Bible gives a completely different view of happiness than this world gives. According to Scripture, happiness is never something that we should seek directly. Rather, it is always something that results in seeking something else.

If we seek holiness, we will find happiness.

Jesus said, “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6 NLT). As we align our wills with God’s will, the rest of our lives will find the proper balance.

The Bible uses the words happy and blessed interchangeably. This kind of happiness is based not on circumstances but on a deep, supernatural experience of contentedness that comes from our lives being right with God.

Now, this is the opposite of popular wisdom, which essentially says that to be happy, we must do this or have that.

But in Psalm 1, we find God’s description of a happy person: “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. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do” (verses 1–3 NLT).

Notice this psalm begins with negative thinking, not positive thinking. God tells us what we must not do before He tells us what we must do. He warns us of certain things that can be perilous to us spiritually, certain things that we must avoid.

If we want to be truly happy, if we want to flourish, God is telling us what will be poisonous, destructive, and counterproductive. Thus, we must guard ourselves against the things that will harm us.

We’re living in a time when it seems as though everyone is watching their weight. And, of course, as the years go by, some of us have more weight to watch. We become aware of things in our food like calories, fat, and carbohydrates. We are concerned about things like that because we don’t want to get heavier.

In the same way, we want to avoid the things that would hinder our growth as followers of Christ. There are things that we may engage in, things that we may do, that could be detrimental to us spiritually. They might hold us back from the life that God wants us to live.

Here is a simple litmus test to apply. Ask yourself, “This thing that I’m about to do, does it build me up spiritually? Does it promote growth in Christian character? Is it spiritually constructive?”

There may be things in our lives that tear us down spiritually because they tear us away from the people of God. Or, they dull our hunger for the Word of God. Anything that would keep us from Christian fellowship, dull our desire for prayer, take away our appetite for Bible study, or make this world seem more attractive is something we don’t have time for.