Reverend Jonathan Waits
How to Be Happy (Proverbs 29:18)
May 18, 2025
A couple of weeks ago, our youth participated in a kickball tournament. Actually, let’s correct that: they won a kickball tournament. The event was a fundraiser for a great local ministry called Faith Alive Ministries. They are driven by the idea that when Jesus’ brother, James, said that true religion is to take care of orphans and widows, that he meant it. Jordan and Taylor do an awesome job seeking out opportunities to do just that in practical ways both locally and globally.
In any event, a few weeks before the tournament, they emailed out a set of rules by which the games were going to be governed. The morning of the tournament, they had a meeting with all of the coaches to go over the rules one last time and emphasize that they would be followed carefully. The reason was pretty obvious: they wanted the whole thing to run smoothly instead of devolving into little more than an endless series of arguments about rules. That’s how kickball worked on the playground when I was in elementary school. We’d spent 20 minutes debating the rules, and about five minutes playing most days because while there were a few broadly agreed upon basics, everything else was choose-your-own-adventure…and we all tended to choose the adventure that worked best for us rather than working to make sure we had all chosen the same adventure. As long as we were committed to living as we pleased, chaos tended to be the result. The Faith Alive folks understood this and planned accordingly. On the playground…not so much. In life more generally, the same basic principle is in operation. Today, I want to reflect for just a few minutes with you on what this means for us, and how we can avoid the chaos.
This is graduation season. Schools all over the country are finishing up their spring semesters and sending students who have completed all the requirements for their degrees to cross the stage, pick up a piece of paper along their way, and head out into the “real” world to pursue whatever is coming next. Even when that kind of a formal graduation isn’t happening, though, there are still many students who are preparing to go into the next phase of their education, a transition that brings with it all sorts of changes. This is also the season when graduation speakers are tasked with coming up with some sort of pithy-sounding, generic, but also profound advice to give at commencement addresses. I’m sure we’ll soon be treated to another round of, “can-you-believe-what-this-commencement-speaker-said?!?” which is, of course, one of the media’s favorite games this time of year because of the guaranteed clicks and tune-ins it always seems to bring.
Well, I’m far too verbose to be pithy, and I don’t tend to be particularly clever. So, if you were hoping for that today, you are going to leave sorely disappointed. But thankfully, I know where to find some pretty good pithy sayings as well as intensely practical advice all in one place. And this morning, I want to take a look together at some pithy advice that has the potential to radically impact our lives if we will let it.
When we are seeking pithy and practical advice in the Scriptures, there’s really only one place to turn: Proverbs. If you have your copy of the Scriptures handy, start finding your way with me to that great Old Testament collection of wisdom. Proverbs, of course, is mostly a collection of wise sayings. In that, it may be the most easily timeless document in the Old Testament. It covers a whole range of different topics, offering a godly perspective on how to navigate them from the standpoint of God’s character.
There is one important thing to note about Proverbs generally, and then we’ll take a look at one particular proverb. The wisdom sayings we find here—mostly from King Solomon, but with a few others contributing along the way—describe the ways the people of God can live and experience the good life, all things being equal. The kick, of course, is that all things aren’t always equal. In fact, they are often not. What this means is that while the wise sayings we find in Solomon’s collection prove themselves to be true and accurate most of the time, they are not hard and fast rules that apply in every single instance. They aren’t like mathematical formulas. If we expect them to be, we’ll wind up frustrated and cynical. If, on the other hand, we take them as good paths to pursue through life in almost every situation, recognizing that they won’t always apply as neatly and tidily as we would prefer, they’ll serve us pretty well.
As for the proverb I want us to reflect on for a few minutes this morning, come with me to near the end of the collection to Proverbs 29:18. This is one of the more well-known proverbs, but mostly in its King James setting, which is problematic for reasons we’ll talk about in just a second. First, here’s the proverb itself: “Without revelation people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.” The King James Version puts it like this: “Where there is no vision, the people perish: But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” That’s certainly a more memorable translation, but the translation, “the people perish,” isn’t at all accurate. The Hebrew word there refers to something being loosened or unbound like a woman letting down her hair. In fact, it referred rather directly to someone letting down their hair. The various contexts in the Old Testament where we see this world used are when someone is literally letting down their hair or being commanded to not let down their hair for one reason or another. Slightly more interpretively, the NIV or ESV rendering of the phrase as “people cast off restraint” captures the likely intended meaning here much better.
The idea is that without clear and specific direction from God on what is right and what is wrong, people will wander off in all sorts of directions other than the right one. We’re like a herd of sheep without a pen. We won’t stay where we are safe and secure. We will pursue what our heart desires—which is usually determined by whatever is right in front of us in a given moment—and follow that particular path all over the place, heedless of the danger that brings to our lives. Following one of these paths will eventually end in eternal death which is perhaps where the translators of the King James Version got the idea from, but that’s not what the Hebrew actually says.
And I know that by virtue of this proverb appearing in the Scriptures there’s a sense to think about it as some religious idea that doesn’t have much traction in the real world, but think again. Think back to my playground kickball days. We didn’t have a coherent set of rules governing our games, and so we wandered all over the place, and wasted most of our time arguing about the rules. This is graduation Sunday so school is still pretty fresh for a number of folks in here. Even if you aren’t graduating or don’t have one graduating, the school environment is still one most of us know well. You can tell difference often by just standing outside the door between a classroom where the teacher is fully in control of the room thanks to a clearly delineated and intentionally held set of rules, and a classroom where the teacher has taken a more hands off approach such that the students are operating on the basis of an anything goes kind of policy.
Go bigger than this: the reason we have the laws in place that we do in this nation—even the weird ones from the past—is because someone, somewhere was doing something the rest of us recognized as not right, but they wouldn’t quit voluntarily, and so we had to pass a law with some teeth to…encourage them back in the right direction. If people stayed on the straight and narrow path through life on their own, this wouldn’t be necessary, but we don’t, so it is. Where there is no revelation or instruction, people do indeed run wild.
Now, culturally speaking, we are told this is a good thing. The most commonly given cultural advice nowadays is that we should what? Follow our hearts. Don’t believe me? Watch just about any movie or TV show out there right now, especially anything put out by Disney. Our culture tells us that when we follow our hearts it will all work out like it did for The Little Mermaid (the original, animated version, not the more recent live action remake). When we defy the rules (cultural norms, parental expectations, religious doctrines that were forced upon us without warrant) in order to run in the direction our hearts are leading us, everything will work out great in the end. Sure, there may be some bumps along the way, but as long as we just keep following our hearts, it will all be good. After all, Ariel flagrantly defied her father’s command, and wound up becoming a princess for her efforts. Of course, she nearly cost her own father his life and unleashed a horrible monster on the world, but it was all good. She lived happily ever after.
The uncomfortable reality, though, is that things don’t always go quite like that. More often, they go something more like the story of Samson. Do you remember his story? God appointed him before he was even more to be a leader of the people of Israel. This was all prophesied to his parents who couldn’t get pregnant until God sent them Samson. But rather than listening to the wise counsel and divine guidance he received, he ran wild. He followed his heart. Along the way, he unleashed all sorts of chaos on his family, his nation, and even the enemies of his nation with very little in the way of provocation. In the end, he wound up captured and alone and stripped of all the gifts God had given him that made him special in the first place. Yes, there’s a redemptive arc to his story in that he gets his strength back and uses it to decimate a huge number of Israel’s enemies, but this comes only when he stops following his heart and starts following divine instruction once again.
We see the same basic story arc in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. That troubled young man followed his heart. He pursued what he wanted without thought of any of the obstacles standing in his way. That’s exactly the kind of thing our culture celebrates. But for this kid, it didn’t work out to see all of his dreams coming true. It worked out to see him wind up as a starving pig farm hand, which, in the minds of Jesus’ audience, was literally as low as he could fall. He found life and joy and happiness once again only when he started following divine instruction once again. Well, look again at what Solomon wrote: “Without revelation people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.” Or, to put that even more simply: If you want a happy life, God’s ways are best.
Graduates, you are about to head off into a world that will be different from the one you are leaving behind. Even if you are only moving from one grade to another, though, that promotion will come with fewer restraints on your decision making. It will feel like you have more freedom. What I know about you because it’s true about me too is that if you take this gift of freedom and start doing whatever you want in a given moment, it’s not going to play out well for you. It will wind up making your life a mess. It will be when you stick with the divine instruction you have received along the way of your journey thus far that you will find real happiness. If you want a happy life, God’s ways are best.
Okay, but how do you actually do that? Does this mean you just can’t do anything fun for the rest of your life? Hardly. Have all the fun in the world. But have that fun from out of a place of commitment to the path of righteousness. There is plenty of life to be lived within the spacious boundaries of God’s character and command. Honestly, there’s more life to be lived there than you’ll find anywhere else. Every other path will be sold with the promise of unlimited enjoyment, but it’s a scam. The memories you make pursuing your heart’s desire will one day be the things you look back on with regret. Don’t walk that path. If you want a happy life, God’s ways are best.
Sure, but again, what does this look like practically? Tell me if this sounds like a familiar theme. For starters, it means investing time in learning the Scriptures well. If you don’t know what God’s instructions are in the first place, you won’t be likely to keep them very well. If you want to experience the happiness that following God’s instructions brings, you need to be intentional about engaging with those instructions on a daily basis. Get into a habit of engaging with the Scriptures each and every day. Make it a habit—something you do because that’s what you do—and then continue to invest until it is no longer merely a habit but a passion. The more you internalize what God has said, the better you will be able to live within those spacious boundaries and to experience the fullness of life that comes by no other means.
Next, you need to seek God’s wisdom for how to apply them faithfully in the situation you are facing. Different situations will call for different applications of God’s word, but they will all flow out of the same place of putting Him and His character first. This means prayer. You need to work to develop the discipline of engaging with God in prayer on a regular and consistent basis. Having a set time of prayer is a good thing, but this should go beyond that to the place where you are consciously engaging God’s Spirit in you throughout your day in every situation you face. More than just praying, though, this includes doing what God says when He responds to your praying…even if that’s not what you want to do.
And, before you go thinking that there are just so many commands in the Scriptures, and how could you possibly be expected to know all of those, let alone keep them, think again. As followers of Jesus who are living under the authority of the new covenant, we have just one command we have to concern ourselves with keeping: love one another as I have loved you. The old covenant doesn’t apply to us anymore. The rest of the commands we see in the New Testament are nothing more (although nothing less) than applications of the one command we are to keep. If you want a happy life, God’s ways are best, and thankfully, God’s ways are really simple.
Getting all of this right is going to happen best when you are living in the context of a community of believers who will help you stand firm and walk in the ways of righteousness. And in case what I mean isn’t clear, I’m talking about the church. You aren’t going to do all of this on your own. You just won’t. I know that heading off to college is the time when many students drift away from the church with plans (sometimes) to return when they finally make the switch to adulting, but if you take that path, the likelihood that you’ll come back isn’t good. The likelihood that you will stick with the divine instruction that will bring you the happiness you desire is even worse. You just aren’t going to follow Jesus faithfully and well without the church. So, stay engaged. And if the one you are in now isn’t one you think you’ll be likely to stay engaged with, find one you will. If you want a happy life, God’s ways are best, but you aren’t going to stick with those ways if you try to do it alone. You need the church.
One last thing: We’ve talked a lot about happiness this morning since that’s the language Solomon uses in the proverb here. Actually, the Hebrew word is “blessing,” which is often understood to mean a kind of supreme, sublime happiness. But as good as happiness is, the goal of life is not to be happy. And if you make that your goal, you aren’t going to accomplish it. You won’t accomplish it, and you’ll sacrifice a whole lot of really good things to the effort. Happiness is a nice side benefit, but the goal of life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Sometimes we will be situationally happy when we do that. Sometimes we won’t. The blessing of living within the spacious boundaries of God’s word and way goes way beyond mere happiness. If you want a happy life, God’s ways are best, but we can only live within the boundaries of that way with His help. This means first and foremost submitting ourselves to a relationship with Jesus as Lord. If you haven’t done that, that’s the first step toward the happiness you desire. Everything else will come subsequent to that.
There is much life ahead of you to be enjoyed to the fullest as you keep moving down the road God has stretched out ahead of you. But if you want to experience all of it, there is just one way. If you throw off the restraint of His guidance, pain and hardship await. If you want a truly happy life, though, God’s ways are best. Let’s embrace and live in those together.