How happy your people must be! What a privilege for your officials to stand here day after day, listening to your wisdom! Praise the Lord your God, who delights in you…
2 Chronicles 9:7-8 NLT
The search for happiness has been important for thousands of years. The queen of Sheba travelled from her home to visit Solomon, because of his famed wisdom, which she observed produced ‘happiness’ among his subjects. I have also travelled widely, extensively and studied to PhD level. I love seeking to discover truth and have an insatiable appetite to understand how I tick and how I might realise my greatest potential. After many adventures in self-discovery, I find myself today content simply to acknowledge that I know God. I spend large amounts of time very happily on my own. But, in reality, I’m not alone. I meet God within all the daily routines of my existence. And where I fail to do so, it is merely that I’ve taken my eye off the Lord.
Paul declares: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
The statement sounds stark. Is he wishing his life away? No. He’s simply wrestling with the reality that his greatest happiness is in God. This is where we can all arrive, once we embrace the wisdom of God. Here alone can we find happiness, both inner contentment and our true purpose. It is a place I travelled along many roads to discover. It is a place I have resisted on many occasions. Yet now it is a space that enfolds me with God’s fullness, and I find I am enjoying the greatest contentment of my life so far. There is nothing in this world I will trade for this hard-won happiness.
Life has many challenges, and one of the greatest is that restless call demanding that we find inner contentment and personal fulfilment. It may simply be that we need to refresh our gaze upon God, for God is the source of our happiness.
QUESTION
Are you happy in your life?
PRAYER
I turn my eyes to you, Lord. May I simply look on you.
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