Happiness Is

There is a struggle for happiness these days. Happiness and peace seem to be a fleeting “Feeling” for individuals and families. I want to follow up on the last word the Lord gave me “Settle” and look at what keeps us from that place of being settled in life and how can we shift. 

“Why are you downcast oh my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God: For I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” Psalm 43:5 

The writer of this Psalm was pleading his case to God and literally saying in the previous verses "Vindicate me oh God, plead my cause “AGAINST AN UNGODLY NATION.” He goes to the length of even blaming God a little, he said, “Why do You cast me off? Bring me to Your holy hill!” When you read the whole Psalm you can feel and see the struggle of how he felt and yet he knew truth and knew that God was faithful. He ends the Psalm with verse 5, “For I shall yet praise Him!” 

This struggle reminds me so much of what I see happening in the hearts and minds of my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ all over the place. By times I see it happening in my own home. A disquietness. The focus of our eye is focused on the actions of the oppressor, the mourning, oppression, the questionings. We find ourselves in a place of deep conflict inside because we know the One in whom our hope should rest. 

I know we are facing heavy things in this season, I don’t need to list them here. It’s coming at us from every side, and even from surprising places. Society is pretty focused on everything that is wrong, and this way of thinking can really cling to you. So let’s you and I shift like the writer of Psalm 43! 

“Then I will go to the altar of God, TO GOD MY EXCEEDING JOY, and on the harp I will praise You O God, my God.” Psalm 43:4 

When we go to the altar of His presence, suddenly we shift into Heaven’s Reality. (“In Your presence there is fullness of joy!” Psalm 16:11) It’s a shift of focus, It’s a shift of what is being poured in, it’s a shift of what will now be poured out! 

Look at how the passion translations pens verse 4! “I will praise you with the harp that PLAYS IN MY HEART to You!” Wow, this sounds like an INTERNAL SHIFT!!!! 

Lord I pray for everyone reading this that they will receive that internal shift as they enter Your Gates of Thanksgiving with hearts of praise! 

Let’s remember Psalm 100 (Passion): 

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