Choose to be Happy

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most people are as happy as they choose to be.”

I’ve been thinking about that quote a bit lately. It seems to me that there are a lot of unhappy folks today – and many of them are in our churches! Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, has written “The most unhappy people in the world are not the unbelievers, many of whom are ignorantly and blissfully happy in their sin, albeit temporarily. The most unhappy people in the world are Christians who resist the will of God for their lives! The Christian who refuses to do the will of God must be prepared to pay the price of disobedience. Whatever we sow, we reap, the Bible tells us. It has long been my conviction that I have never met a happy, disobedient Christian or an unhappy, obedient one” (from The Most Unhappy People by Bill Bright, copyright 2003 and reprinted in Pulpit Helps magazine, August 2009).

What Bill Bright is saying is pretty simple stuff. It is, “Look – you want to be happy? Then obey God. You want to be unhappy? Then disobey God.”

I am not an advocate of a Pollyanna naiveté that would ignore tragedy or injustice. These things do not make us happy. But I do advocate a trusting and obedient spirit toward God – this generates a deep happiness, or joy, regardless of circumstances.

“Joy-stealers” are those things that strip joy away. These “joy-stealers” are the things that motivate us to disobey God – envy, worry, fear, unforgiveness, perfectionism and inability to control others. This list is incomplete, but covers a lot of ground. It is time for each of us to purge these joy-stealers from our lives, begin living in obedience to God, and watch our attitude become one of happiness.

Reuben A. Torrey, a Christian educator from another era, told of a lady who came to him and stated that she was not happy – she had tried the Bible’s promise that “whatever you ask believing, you shall receive” but that it had not worked. To this lady Dr. Torrey showed the verse from 1 John 3:22 – “we receive from Him (God) anything we ask, because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him.” He then asked the lady, “Were you keeping His commandments and doing those things pleasing in His sight?” She confessed that she was not. Dr. Torrey then gently pointed out her problem, the same that plagues many of us – the reason her prayers were unanswered and she was unhappy was due to her disobedience to God

“O how happy is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But whose delight is in the law of the Lord…” Psalm 1 begins.

Disobedience to God is the source of unhappiness. Obedience to God is the source of happiness.

Choose to be happy by choosing to obey.