Being Happy, Part 4

This is part 4 in the Being Happy series! I have two more installments planned and then we shall move on......

Another way to help yourself on the road to being happy is to change the way you look at things; change your perspective.

“It isn’t raining rain to me, it’s raining daffodils!
In every dimpling drop I see, wild flowers on the hills!
A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;
It isn’t raining rain to me, it’s raining roses down!

It isn’t raining rain to me, but fields of clover blooms,
Where any buccaneering bee, may find a bed and roam!
A health, then, to the happy, a fig to him who frets!
It isn’t raining rain to me, it’s raining violets!”
—Robert Loveman

It has been said: The way you see the world is usually the way the world sees you.

One area to check our perspective is the way we look at other people:

In Matthew 7:3 Jesus said, “And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” Some people like to go around looking for specks in other people. And guess what, if you look for specks in me, you are going to find them.

I heard of a guest preacher who got up to preach and realized that the local preacher had forgotten to tell the congregation that he was going to be out of town and had arranged for this preacher to come. The congregation was giving him funny looks so he said, “Brethren, now I know you don’t know me, but if you knew me, you’d like me, because I’m a good fellow.” If we approached people expecting them to be good we might get along better. I certainly would like people to approach me that way

Here is a great poem on this subject:

I Know Something Good About You

Wouldn’t this world be better,
if folks whom we meet would say
“I know something good about you,”
and treat you just that way?

Wouldn’t it be splendid,
if each handshake, good and true,
Carried with it this assurance:
“I know something good about you?”

Wouldn’t life be happier,
if the good that’s in us all,
Were the only thing about us,
that people would recall?

Wouldn’t our days be sweeter,
if we praised the good we see;
For there is a lot of goodness,
in the worst of you and me?

Wouldn’t it be fine to practice
this way of thinking too;
You know something good about me,
I know something good about you?

-Anonymous

Another area we should take care in is the way we look at our circumstances.

In Phil. 1:12-14 Paul wrote from prison, “Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.” If there was anyone who had the right to complain it was Paul—but he took a different perspective.

The only difference between a stumbling block and a stepping stone is the way you look at it. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Bloom where you are planted.

Two men looked through prison bars; one saw mud, the other saw stars.

Take a look at Acts 5:40-42, “And they took his advice; and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them to speak no more in the name of Jesus, and then released them. So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.”

You want to be happy: Get the gratitude attitude, think on heaven daily and change your perspective.