Ouachita Stories

What is your true source of happiness? Is it something you have or something you want? I’m not talking about things you have or want, but true happiness and contentment, peace and joy regardless of circumstances. What brings you that kind of happiness?

The Bible tells us in Psalm 119:1-3, ”Happy are people of integrity, who follow the Lord…who obey His decrees…and search for Him with all their hearts…who don’t compromise with evil and walk only in His paths.”

If God has charged us to walk obediently in His paths, and to keep His commands carefully, and if happiness comes from fulfilling God’s laws perfectly, who, then, can be totally happy? We’re all lawbreakers! “Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect Your principles. Then I will not be disgraced when comparing my life with Your commands” (Psalm 119: 5).

Happiness, it seems, is so elusive! We simply cannot follow the laws God has set for us perfectly. But God knows our humanity – our weaknesses; He had a plan from the beginning of time! He sent his Servant, Jesus, to help us because we are helpless!

 

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:3-4

 

Isaiah 53: 3-5 says , “It was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. … And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God for His own sins! But, He was wounded and crushed for our sins; He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped and we were healed" (emphases mine).

The prophet reminds us that we have carelessly strayed like sheep – not intentionally, but nonetheless have wandered away from the path He has set for us. But, because of His great love as our Shepherd, He has made a way back for us. His righteous Servant – the great Shepherd of the sheep – has made it possible for us to know His peace and happiness, not through obedience to the law, but by trusting in the sacrifice of His Servant in our place.

We are thankful today for God’s perfect plan for us helpless beings, to bring to us true happiness – not through our own obedience to the law, but through trust in his completed work of mercy and forgiveness to those who believe.
 

By Sharon Cosh, Coordinator of the ESL program