Be Happy!

Would you like to be happy?

I would!

I still remember the pageant question I drew from the bowl. "What does happiness mean to you?"

Ummmm . . .

I blathered some kind of nonsense, and my mom said afterward that I could have said something like, "Happiness would be not having to answer a question that asked what happiness means to me."

Or I could have just said, "World peace."

Or better yet, "Inner peace."

Bliss. Serenity. Joy.

Blessed.

Makarios.

What Jesus said. Nine times in nine verses.

I want that!

You bet I want that.

But wait.

Something is wrong.

Something is messed up.

I thought I would get to do my own thing. Be blessed with money, friends, stuff, travels, popularity, good times.

I thought it was about me, me, me.

What's this stuff about poverty and purity and meekness and mercy and starving and persecution?

I have to be miserable to be happy? That's backwards! That's confusing. And it doesn't sound like much fun!

What's that?

I'm not going to find true happiness any other way? The tree of happiness doesn't grow in cursed soil? I'm not going to fill my emptiness with externals? My kind of happiness will make me miserable?

You want to replace my thermometer with a thermostat? No fluctuations? Steady happiness no matter what's swirling around me?

You want to give me dancing, spin-around, Snoopy joy?

Well, okay. I'm trusting. I'm listening.

"Blessed are . . ." Matthew 5:3-11

Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?

Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Heska King