Another Path to Happiness
Proverbs 28:14 CSB
Happy is the one who is always reverent,
but one who hardens his heart falls into trouble.
The pursuit of happiness was written into the Declaration of Independence. This was America's Dear John letter to the King of England. Three of mankind's unalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Mankind has been chasing happiness way before the Declaration was even conceived. Solomon, the author of the Proverbs, gives us some godly insight as to how to be happy, not just pursue.
“Happy is the one who is always reverent...” Another word for happy is blessed, but we'll stay with happy for this devotional. The person who has a reverence for God and His ways is the happy one. Studies since the 1970s have shown that happiness is not an economic factor and that even though our income has doubled as a society since the 70s, our happiness has not risen accordingly. I am not advocating for cutting our income in half, but the Bible gives us insight as to what produces true happiness. The person who is submitted to God and His ways is going to be a happier person. This falls in line with the belief that God is good and His ways for mankind are better. The concept of an angry God just looking to punish man is not accurate. Jesus said God is a better Father than anyone on earth. And if fathers on earth are good to their kids, how much more will our Heavenly Father be good to us? When we live respectful of God and His ways, it produces peace and joy, two key components of happiness.
The reverent person is contrasted with the one who hardens his heart. Being hard-hearted does not work well in any context. The person who hardens his heart to authority typically doesn't live in a good place. An employee who hardens his heart towards those he works for is not a happy employee, often winding up unemployed. Being hard-hearted is likened to being stubborn and resistant. Those are two things we don't want in our relationship with the Lord. The hard-hearted are the ones who don’t receive God's Word and do not bear fruit. In our proverb for today, the hard-hearted are not happy because they fall into trouble. The good news is that being hard-hearted is not genetic. We can change. And change toward a reverential respect for God puts us back on the right path—the path to happiness.