Happy Hearts

Happy Hearts

Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God.

Joel 2:23

IN WORD There are a lot of hard commands in the Bible. This isn’t one of them. Well, it shouldn’t be one of them. The instruction to be glad and rejoice should be the most enjoyable command of all. If we ever needed permission to be happy people, this is it. God’s own Word tells us to.

Why, then, don’t we rejoice? Perhaps we don’t know why we should, forgetting that God wouldn’t tell us to be glad unless we had a really good reason to do so. Or maybe we obsess about what we don’t yet have, focusing on the half-empty part of our glass rather than the half-full—or the 99 percent full, as it most likely is. Or perhaps we worry about the future, not realizing that negativity is nowhere mentioned as a characteristic of godliness. Regardless of the reason, the command to rejoice—reiterated many times over in the Bible—seems unrealistic.

But it’s only unrealistic to those who ignore who God is and what He has promised. When we refuse to rejoice, we are refusing to acknowledge His deliverance, His provision, His favor, His power, His presence, and everything else He tells us is ours by faith. In a sense, it’s slander. We impugn His character by focusing our attention on the negatives of the world rather than on the positives of His Kingdom. We forget that the negatives are temporary and the positives are eternal. When it comes to our moods, we have grossly misplaced priorities.

IN DEED Psalm 103:2 tells us not to forget any of God’s benefits (a gentle rebuke, by the way, to those who don’t think we should focus any attention on what God does for us). Remembering His benefits not only encourages us, but in many cases, it can be a safeguard against anxiety disorders and depression. The fact is that the Bible is very persistent in its instruction for us to “be glad.” Nowhere in Scripture is negativity rewarded. Only those who look to God in hope and faith are honored. Spend some time today listing God’s benefits. Let yourself be glad.

God cannot give us a happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.

—C. S. LEWIS