A good deal of our unhappiness as we grow older is caused by our pining for the “good old days”—those times when we enjoyed health, wealth, position, or power. But the things of this world don’t last. They are vacillating, changeable, capricious. In time, they may be taken away from us and replaced with poverty, isolation, weakness, and pain.

When we realize that this world and everything in it is unstable and unpredictable, we are left longing for something that lasts. What is left?

The psalmist wrote, “[God’s] righteousness endures forever” (112:9). It is untouched and unharmed by time and circumstances. Nothing that happens in this world can take it away. It endures when life has stripped us of every other possession.

This righteousness is ours as we draw near to God through faith in Jesus Christ (see Rom. 1:17; 3:21-26). He is our rock and our salvation and the only source of true and lasting happiness. Psalm 112:1 says, “Blessed [happy] is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments.”

Delight in the Lord and in His Word, and you’ll find true happiness. He alone offers a righteousness that endures for all eternity.  — David H. Roper