Obey God’s word to find true happiness

Published 8:55 am Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Dear Rev. Graham: I’ve worked hard to find happiness and have been successful, but my marriage has failed and my career is eating me up. The idea of happiness seems to me to be very deceitful. — H.D.

Dear H.D.: King Solomon was convinced he knew how to find happiness — and because he had vast resources at his command, he was able to pursue it. Wealth, fame, pleasure, power, lavish houses, a reputation for wisdom — you name it, King Solomon achieved it. And yet after gaining everything he had ever wanted, he reluctantly concluded that his life was still empty and without meaning. His search for lasting happiness had failed, and his soul was still empty.

This is a common story. Many people are in danger of making the same mistake King Solomon made — convinced that the things of this world will bring happiness and peace and pursuing them with vigor. Don’t be deceived; they never will. And the reason is because we were made to know God. Later, King Solomon realized this. He should have known it sooner; after all, his father, David, was a man after God’s own heart, and Solomon himself had vowed to live according to God’s wisdom. But when it was all said and done, Solomon wrote, “I denied myself nothing…. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11, NIV). Don’t be misled (even as the wise king was), but make Christ the center and foundation of your life — beginning today.

The world makes a lot of empty promises concerning happiness — what it looks like and how to obtain it. But true happiness is really called joy, and it comes to those who delight in the things of the Lord and to those who meditate on God’s Word — and obey it!