For 20 years Oprah Winfrey has been sharing her Favorite Things with happily excited audiences. Oprah’s Favorite Things is on steroids, because now her Favorite Things sit in their own dwelling places on Alexa and Amazon–voice activated!
Martha Stewart has her Top 40 List of Good Things, indispensables for the home. We can easily access this list on her website.
Oprah’s selections are things you can buy. Martha’s list is chock-full of DIY ideas to make life wonderful.
What are your “good things“? What makes you intensely happy? What do you need in order to feel satisfied?
We decide what is most important to us – we choose what makes us happy. When you consider what’s important, do you land in the usual (health, wealth, image, owning things, experiences, friends) or do you look further? Do you desire more? Do you dig deeper for longer-lasting meaning?
I recently ran across this verse and I find it speaks to our choices of Good Things that bring lasting pleasure: “The Lord is my portion; I have promised to keep Your words.” Psalm 119:57
Portion: that’s a word I do not often consider in regard to my relationship with Jesus. Here’s the Bible dictionary definition of portion — what I own; what has been allotted to me; my inheritance.
So when the Psalmist writes, “The Lord is my portion”, what he says is, “Jesus is mine.” “Jesus has been allotted to me.” “Jesus is my inheritance.”
That’s rich, because from the words “allotted” and “inheritance”, it looks like a gift! We know from scripture that Jesus IS a gift, and we who place faith in him, are the receivers.
Of course, as with any gift, we have the choice to receive or reject. Are you like me? When I’m being gifted, I usually choose to receive! Rarely do I reject. And afterward, there follows the choice: Do I make use of it, or lay it aside?
This guy writing Psalms, in response to his allotment of Jesus clearly chooses to accept and make good use of his gift with the response, “I have promised to keep your words.”
Matthew Henry comments, the Psalmist “makes the favor of the Lord his felicity.“ He chooses God to be the appropriate expression of his thoughts. God is his “good thing.“ God makes him intensely happy!
Acceptance of a gift leads to commitment, one way or another: “… I have promised to keep your words.“ The psalmist has made a rule for his life. An intentional action has been taken, a conscious choice has been exercised.
So, when happiness is challenged, the default goes directly to God. The choice has already been made. There’s no need to question or ponder, “where is my happiness?“
No. God is enough and God is not just “My Good Thing”…God is my Everything!
You and I can go immediately to our happy place, even when external circumstances do not feel happy. “The Lord is my portion…“ He is what makes me extremely and intensely happy–my felicity. He is enough. He is everything.
Here’s a good code word for when we are challenged by a bad thing: Felicity = what makes you extremely and intensely happy.
Find your Felicity every day!