Proverbs 15:13 ESV
A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+15%3A13&version=ESV]
We spend a lot of time trying to be happy all the time. It doesn’t work, but we try anyway. Everybody does. Some use drugs. Some use a credit card and trips to Walmart. Some use several hundred dollars of supplements a day. We seek lasting happiness, and we seek so often in vain. We stub our pinky toe, or a friend dies, or we become accustomed to our current distraction, have to look for another. It’s the story of ancient and modern civilization both, and it’s a story with two endings: that of the damned and that of the righteous. How, ultimately, can man have happiness? Only in the Lord his God.
Ecclesiastes, probably the winner of ‘most confusing book of Bible’ in at least a few polls, addresses a very important question: how are we to live in the long-term, understanding the vanity of this world? By vanity, Solomon (the likely author of the book) does not mean some nihilistic meaninglessness. Vanity, essentially, is the recognition he states in 1:9- “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” In other words, this world goes on as it went on, and no man ends anywhere but death (barring Elijah and Enoch).
In this search, Solomon tries out all sorts of remedies, all sorts of paths to happiness. He tries out wisdom (1:18), pleasure (2:1), and hard work (2:18). He did not stint in trying these, not in quantity or quality or diversity. All they could do was distract him. Solomon turns from these, recognizing their futility, and asks again how man is to have joy (the higher and more lasting form of happiness) in this world.
Solomon does come to a conclusion, though. He comes to, “the end of the matter; all has been heard.” He delivers a verdict: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (12:13). This is a departure, it seems from his theme; did not he earlier say that upon both the damned and the righteous evil times come (8:14)? Yet, as we will see, it is the only good answer. Only by living towards Him can this fleeting earthly life be sanctified, made aught but purest vanity which vanished with the wind.
This course does not protect us from suffering, though. Solomon speaks no idle word when he commands us to “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come” (12:1). We will still hurt, still have a lack of that perfect happiness we began by wishing we had. Friends will still die; we will still sin against Him and His creation; we will still be disturbed by a million things which are in eternity entirely petty. This course does not guarantee comfort.
How, then, are we to find that glad heart which this proverb (15:13) extols? How are we to avoid the “sorrow of heart” which threatens to crush our spirits?
The first step, in order to follow Solomon’s advice, is to find that sorrow of heart which will crush our spirits. After all, we deserve it. We sin from pride and hatred and self-love, and so we deserve eternal damnation. Should we not have overwhelming sorrow for this? Should not our hearts be crushed? If David, the man after God’s own heart, was so distraught at his sin, do we dare take another course (Acts 13:22; Ps. 22:14)? So our spirits must be crushed that we may live.
The second step is to repent and believe, by the grace of God and not our own ability. We must no longer rely on ourselves- for that leads to crushing sorrow. We must rely on Him who knew no sin and bore our sin that we might have life (2 Cor. 5:21). The third step is to live out this faith and this repentance in our lives. Because He saved us, because we love Him, we must seek evermore to live by His law (Rom. 6:1-2).
Finally, we reach the endpoint, the fruit, of all this, the point to which Solomon presses us: the fruit, temporal and eternal, of faithfulness, of His work in us. We have, in the first place, unshakeable salvation in Him (Rom. 8:35). This is a high and holy joy, one which the world should never move us. In this life, though, we have also the assurance of His love. It is because we rest in Him that we have joy, joy even in what the unregenerate man would know for vanity. After all, though vanity in itself, insofar as it brings glory to Him, insofar as we may see and proclaim His glory in it, so far it excels vanity, so far it becomes eternally significant, for His glory is to everlasting. Therefore, because of all this, we may have in His world and ultimately in Him alone a glad heart, a cheerful face to proclaim our joy to all the world. It is true what Solomon says, “For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God” (2:26).
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
