Happiness

The New Revised Standard Version Psalm 33

Psalm 33

The Greatness and Goodness of God

1 Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous.

Praise befits the upright.

2 Praise the LORD with the lyre;

make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.

3 Sing to him a new song;

play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4 For the word of the LORD is upright,

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

5 He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and all their host by the breath of his mouth.

7 He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;

he put the deeps in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the LORD;

let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

9 For he spoke, and it came to be;

he commanded, and it stood firm.

10 The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;

he frustrates the plans of the peoples.

11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever,

the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

12 Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD,

the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.

13 The LORD looks down from heaven;

he sees all humankind.

14 From where he sits enthroned he watches

all the inhabitants of the earth—

15 he who fashions the hearts of them all,

and observes all their deeds.

16 A king is not saved by his great army;

a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.

17 The war horse is a vain hope for victory,

and by its great might it cannot save.

18 Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,

on those who hope in his steadfast love,

19 to deliver their soul from death,

and to keep them alive in famine.

20 Our soul waits for the LORD;

he is our help and shield.

21 Our heart is glad in him,

because we trust in his holy name.

22 Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,

even as we hope in you.

Psal

Are you happy?

How do you know?

What things about your life indicate happiness or the absence of it?

Throughout the Psalms, we get pictures of the emotional state of David and the broader people of God, as they cry out in praise or agony, joy, hope, and longing, in this songs, these poetic tellings of the way life is and what it is to be a follower of God.

While none of these texts are prescriptions for how to live a life…they do describe the good life and the struggles of life quite well.

Our Psalm this morning, Psalm 33, tells us, “Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Yahweh, on those who hope in the Lord’s steadfast love, to deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord; the Lord is our help and shield. Our heart is glad in YHWH, because we trust in the Lord’s holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”

We place our hope in the Lord, turn our selves to God’s presence, and are restored in God’s love.

There has been a good bit of research in to happiness and what helps us find it, especially in recent years. And, as you might intuitively know, happiness does not come from the places we might stereotypically expect: it doesn’t come from how much we own or how much stuff we collect. It doesn’t come through prestige or position, though that is often what we seek in our careers and work. It doesn’t come living life without struggle or by having it easy all along.

In fact, happiness is something a lot more elusive to us if we try to seek it through these expected means.

Over the last few years, I’ve had the privilege to be a part of a team at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology in their Center for Transforming Engagement. This part of the academic institution is looking at how to promote resiliency for ministry professionals and church systems. Resiliency is our ability to respond to stress and difficult situations and flex back to health through such times. Happiness and resiliency are intimately related, for if you are able to be resilient, responding to stress in proper ways that allow it to be metabolized and released, you are much more likely to find happiness and a sense of “center” again.

Think, for a moment, of a time when you were under intense stress. Perhaps it was a time of illness for someone in your family. Or things were particularly stressful at work. Or maybe it was in the height of raising a child or supporting an aging parent. Maybe it was during a political cycle or amidst the racial and environmental justice conversations our world is steeped in these days.

How did you respond to that stress?

How did you “bounce back” through it? Did you?

Happiness is an elusive state of being because it’s not really the default mode that our world operates in. It’s a hoped for state, something on the horizon, but something that we often can’t hold for very long.

I’ve learned that the better framework to consider is how we become resilient, how we flex and bounce and restore amidst the daily burdens.

Our passage says, “Happy (asher) is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.” The people of God are happy, not because they have privilege to have it all together and have certainty in their security — rather, they are happy, asher, blessed, because their long arc of life as a nation, as a people, is wrapped up in God’s choosing to bless and keep them. The Lord looks upon them, watches over them, gives them strength. They are happy, because they have God who gives them resilience and strength.

Back to the research. One of the pieces of our work at The Seattle School has been to dive into the research and distill it down into concepts that are easy to communicate and remember when we’re in those intense seasons of strain and stress.

All the research on happiness and resilience can be boiled down. How do we become resilient? How do we find that happiness of weathering the storm?

In our work, we use three guiding principles: You need People. You need Practices. And you need Purpose.

Want to be happy, want to be resilient? First, find and connect with your people. Who are your people? Well, I hope you look around in these pews today and know that we are your people, at least some of your people.

Think about our kids we had up here this morning. We want them to be resilient and happy in their lives, right? Well, they need People. Their families are important, but also, they need mentors, elders, supporters who will champion them and look out for them.

We need friends, not just acquaintences, but real friends who can hear our struggles and bear our pains and joys with us.

And sadly, we live in a world where there is a loneliness epidemic. We are more disconnected from one another than we have ever been. And this drives us into despair and struggle.

So, today, first, remember that you need people. And remember that other people need you. We need you. The simplest thing we can do for one another is be there. It’s people, people who actually know and love us, that we need.

Second, we need practices.

Want to find this happiness? Want to rise again through difficult times? Well, you need practices to do this, along with the people. Practices can been a variety of things. Here, we immediately turn to think of prayer and worship as our shared practices. Yes, absolutely. Prayer, in particular, is shown to lower anxiety and even reduce your blood pressure. It’s a practice that grounds us in God’s presence.

But there are tons of other practices that get us back to who we are. Running, gardening, swimming, walking with friends (look that’s a two-for-one resilency practice), cooking, hosting people, reading. The list could go on and on.

What do you do? What practices do you have?

In a moment, we’ll hear a beautiful offertory song sung by Jessica Parks. I can say with certainty that one of Jessica’s practices is singing, using the beautiful voice that she has been blessed with to get in touch with her heart and use it to find peace. It’s a practice that she cultivates.

Finally, the third leg of the resliency or happiness stool is Purpose. We need to have or find purpose.

Why do you do what you do? Why do we do what we do together?

A few years back, we worked as a Session to craft something of a purpose statement for our church. We stated that our purpose is to be a people of Loving Welcome, Joyful Practice, and Compassionate Service. These principles give us a shared purpose as a church.

The purpose of humanity — what is it? Our church confessions tell us that the chief end, the purpose of humanity is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.

Now, that might seem too lofty, but let’s put it another way — our purpose, it’s to find the Good Life God has for us and enjoy it, with God, in all we do.

So what’s your individual purpose? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Maybe you don’t know or you haven’t thought about that. That’s ok. We are always refining our purpose, growing into it. Again, the kids we had up here this morning, they’re discovering their purpose. They need People to help them discover it, to unearth it. They need practices that help them cultivate it, to find purpose and use it in the world.

People. Practices. Purpose.

If we are seeking this elusive happiness, our Psalm reminds us, to find it through rejoicing (practicing), knowing that God upholds us in our work (our purpose), and in community with God, who loves us and never leaves us. Turning to God in prayer, worship, work, and leisure is to find ourselves, to know our meaning and perhaps, find a bit of happiness.

I’ll close with this: I don’t think happiness is something we can come by easily. We don’t just put on a smiley face and pretend it’s all ok, especially when it’s not.

But I do believe, like this prayer of the Psalms, that we can find happiness and meaning in our lives by cultivating and crafting our days and years with people, practices, and purpose that gives us a direction. We place our hope in Christ Jesus, who is here, now, living in us, and we work at it, growing in faith, growing in purpose, finding meaning.

In this, we stand firm and place our hope.

Amen.