Being Happy

Proverbs 17:22 says, "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones."

Did you know, studies have shown that happy people are generally healthier than unhappy ones, and they have also shown a connection between happiness and longevity?

The word for joy is found over 120 times in the New Testament in its various forms. There must be a reason. Christians should be joyful. Jesus didn’t come to make us miserable; the gospel is good news, not bad news. When Jesus was born the angel said, "I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people" (Luke 2:10).

The shortest verse in the Greek text is not "Jesus wept," but 1 Thess. 5:16, "Rejoice always."

Over the next week or so I would like to share some thoughts on being happy. This is not something I have achieved. It is a great desire of my heart, a goal I am reaching for. Much of what I will write comes from a sermon my husband preached a while ago. He called it, "On Top of the World".

To start off......

Happiness is a Choice

Abraham Lincoln said, "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." And I think that’s right.

My husband told me about an interesting man he read about it. This man was very much uneducated and somehow made it on a national talk show. He stole the show from the MC with his zest and happiness. The MC, recognizing he had lost the show, said, "Sir, how is it you have all this exuberance?" The man answered, "Well, you see it’s this way: each morning I get up and I have two choices, one to be happy and one not to be happy. And I ain’t as dumb as you think; it’s a lot more fun being happy so I choose to be happy."

It sounds so simple!

God's word tells us "rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice" (Phil. 4:4). The second aspect of the "fruit of the Spirit" is "joy" (Gal. 5:22). Joy is commanded and thus, it’s not just an emotion that comes from earthly circumstances that change from hour to hour. It is an attitude (a mind set) more than a feeling.

For most people, happiness is connected to chance. In fact, the root word for happy (hap) means chance. If the sun comes out, then they are happy. If they win the lottery, then they are happy. But not for Christians. Our joy is a deep inward joy that is based on things that are eternal; they do not change and they cannot be taken away from us by the world.

Let's choose to be happy! Choose Joy! Choose God!