How to be happy

Woman reading a Bible while sitting in a wooden church pew

Do You Want to Be Happy?

May 1, 2026May 1, 2026Leave a comment

“Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!” (Psalm 34:8 CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in a culture that obsessively pursues happiness. Whatever it is that makes you happy is what you should do. That’s the message we receive. You shouldn’t have to feel bad feelings. If you do, there’s a way to make them go away. Get rid of that habit. Change your job. Sell your house. Cut off that relationship. Take this pill. Go on that vacation. In fact, not only should you never have to be unhappy, but you shouldn’t even have to be inconvenienced, uncomfortable, or bored. There’s an app for that. As a pastor who can trend a bit in the direction of cynicism, but who has spent a lot of time over a lot of years in the Scriptures, my first reaction is to roll my eyes at all of this and offer up the standard line about happiness being a fleeting emotion while joy is the deeper and richer virtue. Happiness is circumstantial, but joy is a state of being. But for just a minute this morning, let’s assume on the importance of happiness. If happiness is really what you want to experience, let’s take a look at what the data says about how to achieve that.

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May 19, 2025May 14, 2025Leave a comment

It’s graduation season and this past Sunday we honored our graduates and scholarship recipients. With that in mind, the sermon this week was aimed right in their direction. We live in a culture that prioritizes happiness above just about everything else. We live in a culture that also tells us all the time that the best way to find that happiness is to follow our heart. But is that really how we get there? King Solomon didn’t think so. Let’s take a look at one of his more famous proverbs and talk about how to experience real happiness.

How to Be Happy

A couple of weeks ago, our youth participated in a kickball tournament. Actually, let’s correct that: they won a kickball tournament. The event was a fundraiser for a great local ministry called Faith Alive Ministries. They are driven by the idea that when Jesus’ brother, James, said that true religion is to take care of orphans and widows, that he meant it. Jordan and Taylor do an awesome job seeking out opportunities to do just that in practical ways both locally and globally.

In any event, a few weeks before the tournament, they emailed out a set of rules by which the games were going to be governed. The morning of the tournament, they had a meeting with all of the coaches to go over the rules one last time and emphasize that they would be followed carefully. The reason was pretty obvious: they wanted the whole thing to run smoothly instead of devolving into little more than an endless series of arguments about rules. That’s how kickball worked on the playground when I was in elementary school. We’d spent 20 minutes debating the rules, and about five minutes playing most days because while there were a few broadly agreed upon basics, everything else was choose-your-own-adventure…and we all tended to choose the adventure that worked best for us rather than working to make sure we had all chosen the same adventure. As long as we were committed to living as we pleased, chaos tended to be the result. The Faith Alive folks understood this and planned accordingly. On the playground…not so much. In life more generally, the same basic principle is in operation. Today, I want to reflect for just a few minutes with you on what this means for us, and how we can avoid the chaos.

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Digging in Deeper: Psalm 34:1-3

March 26, 2020March 25, 20202 Comments

“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will boast in the Lord; the humble will hear and be glad. Proclaim the Lord’s greatness with me; let us exalt his name together.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How are you supposed to be happy when everything is falling apart around you? Let’s face it: The news that keeps coming out about the coronavirus isn’t good. The number of cases grows every day. The number of deaths goes up too. More and more states and nations are shutting down…everything…in their attempts to limit the human contact responsible for the virus’ spread. All of the things to which we would normally turn to distract us from bad news are being shut down as well. How do we avoid falling into the trap of perpetual negativity and despair?

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