Psalm 1 begins with the words “Blessed is the man”. The word ‘blessed’ here could be translated ‘happy’. The word ‘happiness’, in its popular usage, is an indeterminate term that we use to refer to the most desirable state of being imaginable for us. What this state of being actually is though, is another matter. In our culture happiness is often connected with wealth, health and prosperity. And yet most people will readily admit that these things don’t necessarily equate to happiness. You can be a wealthy and successful person in perfect health and be empty and miserable. That’s been common wisdom, even in secular circles, since the time of Socrates and Plato. In Plato’s Gorgias Socrates, companions confidently assert that the happiest man is surely the one who gets everything that he wants no matter how he gets it, even if it is by evil schemes and oppression of others. Socrates then argues that it would be impossible for that man to be happy because he has a ‘bad soul’. He then goes on to say that a good person who suffers evil is happier than the person who does the evil, even though he might gain much from it. This sounded ludicrous to Socrates’ hearers at the time, but it’s very true. Long before Socrates this truth was affirmed in the Bible, Psalm 1 being one form of that affirmation. Happiness does not ensue from us getting what we want. Rather it is a by-product of wanting what we were made for. Psalm 1 teaches us that happiness is rightly oriented desire. What do you delight in?
Ask God to align your desires with his.
Read Psalm 1
