In yesterday’s post, I commented on Psalm 1:1. I pointed out that being happy, at least in part, involves avoiding things that sabotage our own happiness. Those are the same things that sabotages the happiness of others. My point was so simple that I often miss it: Happiness involves not doing certain things. Perhaps you also occasionally struggle with the negative, “not-doing” part of happiness.

Today, I want to deal with the positive pole of the happiness battery charger—what we can do to be happy. I have copied and pasted the entire psalm below for your perusal. Don’t worry: It is not a long psalm!

“Psa. 1:1          Blessed is the man

                        who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

             nor stands in the way of sinners,

                        nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

2          but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

                        and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psa. 1:3           He is like a tree

                        planted by streams of water

             that yields its fruit in its season,

                        and its leaf does not wither.

             In all that he does, he prospers.

4          The wicked are not so,

                        but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Psa. 1:5           Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

                        nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

6          for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

                        but the way of the wicked will perish.” (Psalm 1, English Standard Version)

As was the case yesterday with verse 1, I quote Derek Kidner on verse 2:

“The three negatives have cleared the way for what is positive, which is their true function and the value of their hard cutting edge. (Even in Eden God gave man a negative, to allow him the privilege of decisive choice.) The mind was the first bastion to defend, in verse 1, and is treated as the key to the whole man. The law of the Lord stands opposed to ‘the counsel of the wicked’ (1), to which it is ultimately the only answer. The psalm is content to develop this one theme, implying that whatever really shapes a man’s thinking shapes his life. This is conveniently illustrated also by the next psalm, where the word for ‘plot’ (2:1b) is the same as for meditates here, with results that follow from the very different thoughts that are entertained there. In our verse, the deliberate echo of the charge to Joshua reminds the man of action that the call to think hard about the will of God is not merely for the recluse, but is the secret of [Vol 15: Psa, p. 65] achieving anything worthwhile (cf. prospers, here, with Josh. 1:8). Law (tôrâ) basically means ‘direction’ or ‘instruction’; it can be confined to a single command, or can extend, as here, to Scripture as a whole.

3. . . .  The phrase its fruit in its season emphasizes both the distinctiveness and the quiet growth of the product; for the tree is no mere channel, piping the water unchanged from one place to another, but a living organism which absorbs it, to produce in due course something new and delightful, proper to its kind and to its time. The promised immunity of the leaf from withering is not independence of the rhythm of the seasons (cf. the preceding line, and see on 31:15), but freedom from the crippling damage of drought (cf. Jer. 17:8b).”

So, the law—or better, the instruction—of the LORD aims at our ultimate stability, productiveness, and happiness. Now that is positivity on steroids!

I have noticed that, sometimes, when I marinate in God’s Instruction, I experience this delightful happiness. Not always, perhaps not even often. But when I do experience this delight in God’s Instruction, it is very delightful indeed.

And when I don’t experience such delight, I eventually (and grudgingly) have to admit that the fault is in me. God’s Law—God’s Instruction—is positive in its ultimate intentions. The really damaging (and damning) negativity is within my own mind and heart.