Choose Happy
Blessed is the one who does not walk in
step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the
company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who
meditates on his law day and night. – Psalm 1:1-2
What does it mean to be blessed? We see that word in
the Bible again and again, depending on your Bible translation. It’s a good word.
Religious. But what does it mean for us?
Various dictionaries use words such as consecrate or
holy, sacred or bringing good fortune. All those things are wonderful things
and we long to be worthy. We want to be blessed in sorrow and pain (as Jesus
said in the Sermon on the Mount) just as we want to be blessed in mercy and peace.
But what about happiness? We can be stoic and tell
ourselves to remain strong in the Lord as we suffer. We can bear our sorrows
and tell ourselves we are blessed to walk with Christ during a difficult time.
But do we ever have a chance to be happy? Does God want that for us?
Of course, He does! God didn’t create us to suffer
through life. Sure, we’re going to experience pain and heartache but it’s doesn’t
have to consume us. It doesn’t have to define who we are.
In her latest book, Lisa Harper digs back into the original
Hebrew to discover what this psalm really says. Did you know that the Hebrew
word used for blessed is asre, which can be translated into with “happy” or “blessed”?
Go back and reread the Psalm 1:1-2. Now substitute the
word “happy” for the word “blessed.” Are you happy when you walk in the ways of
the LORD? Are you happy when you meditate on His Word?
Let’s go back to the dictionary. What does “happy”
mean? Contentment, pleasure, favored by luck or fortune, delighted, pleased,
joyful. Do you associate those things with external enticements, such as new
stuff, job, food? Or do you think about happy when it comes to God? That’s a
question Lisa posed in her book, The
Sacrament of Happy.
Are you happy that next week we’ll celebrate the birth
of Christ? Or are you feeling the stress of preparations and gifts and company?
Are you happy that God loves you and me enough to send
His Only Son into a broken world to save it? Or are you so focused on your present
circumstances that you’ve missed the greatest gift ever given?
Are you happy to fill your heart with songs of joy and
praise for the Messiah? Or are you so caught up in the trappings the world
insists on that you miss the reason we celebrate Christmas?
Each of us has a choice to make: Are we going to
choose to be happy with what’s truly important or are we going to choose stress
and disappointment as we follow the world?
I choose happy. What about you?
No comments:
Post a Comment