As Long as You're Happy (Psalm 1)

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As long as you’re happy... How many times have you heard that? Or said it out loud? We all just want to be happy, right? Whether it’s in our job, in our marriage, or just our little individual experience on this earth. But when life does what it does and saturates us in un-happiness, then we begin the search for answers. A new discipline or routine, a different outlook, a pathway back to a happy life.

Now, I will be completely honest with you. Happiness has been a search lately for me, personally. Within the last year or so, several things crashed down around me, all at the same time. I have been embarrassed to share the unhappiness that has consumed my own mind. At the same time, I have always known that this is not uncommon for God’s people. And here, the very first Psalm sums up both the my struggle and my comfort, as it does for all of God’s people.

So after a too-long silent reflection, this discussion is grievously overdue. I want to explore this soul-crushing and eternally-freeing question together with you…

What does it take to be happy?

Happy is the one 
Who does not walk in the counsel of wicked
	and in the way of the sinners he does not stand
	and in the seat of scorners he does not stay

Rather in the teaching of YWHW is his pleasure,
	and on His teaching he meditates by day and night.

And he will be like a tree planted by streams of waters
Who's fruit it gives in its time
        and its leaf does not wither
        and all that he does he prospers.

Not so the wicked 
Rather (they are) like the chaff Who the wind blows away.

Psalm 1 begins an entire book of prayers and songs with a declaration about this very topic “Happy is the person…” The description follows in a threefold answer. Largely missing from Hebrew poetry, the relative pronoun אֲשֶׁ֤ר (who, that, which) signals  the answer to our question in verse 1, 3, and 4. Happy is the one “who…”

1. He is happy who does NOT do…

2. He is happy who will be fruitful

3. He is happy in contrast to the wicked who is blown away

Firstly defined by negatives in verse 1, the happy one is “who” does NOT… walk, stand, sit: these movement are progressively more enduring. These ascending ideas of presence are poetically parallel. So the the happy one is not with the wicked, sinners, and scorners.

Again defined by a negative in verse 4, he is NOT the man who will be blown away like dead chaff. The contrasting images are striking. Prosperous heavy fruit who is growing beside abundant waters, compared to dead shells with an absence of substance, who are easily blown away. These people couldn’t be more opposite.

But the middle אֲשֶׁ֤ר description is the central image of “who” is the happy one. Working backwards through this psalm, we learn why he is happy. It is not because he has abstained from certain lifestyles and places. It is not because he chooses to keep the Law of God day and night. Rather, he has been passively planted by the hand of YHWH beside living waters. There he has been made into the happy one: rooted in the history, people, and promises of God. Here he delights day and night, all the time, because God did it all.

The struggle of happiness, the search of trial and error, the burden of finding a new path to happiness. It all ends here. Psalm 1 declares comfort: that happiness is redefined.

Happy is the one who…

Who is the happy one? The one to whom God gives gifts. Gifts of prosperity, gifts patience, gifts of illness, and of sadness, gifts of health wealth and wisdom. God gives His fruit in the proper time. And we don’t have to worry about finding our own. Happy is this one.

Who is the happy one? The one by whom God loved the whole world. He who was put in the proper place, walking, standing, sitting with sinners. He was the one who was planted in the right place at the right time. The Savior of the world, dried up and poured out, withering on a cross, so that he would be the first fruit of our bountiful resurrection to eternal life.

Therefore the wicked will not rise up in the judgement
         Nor the sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For YHWH regards the way of the righteous
        And the way of the wicked withers.

Who is the happy one?

You are the happy one because the wicked won’t rise up. They can’t stand. They are blown away. Their way withers.

Who is the happy one?

You are the happy one because even though you actively aren’t doing anything amazing, YHWH knows you. He knows your way because He has prepared your way. You are the happy one because you have been made righteous, and God planted you in His word, His promises, His teaching. And your next steps, your new routine, your guilt and shame, even your wisdom is not the source of your happiness.

God cares about your ways. So much that He handed over His only Son to death so you could stand among the righteous, fruitful and bountiful. It doesn’t matter how you feel about any of it. You’re here. You’ve been planted. He has personally assured your most enduring happiness.