Praising God Lifts People
/Is everybody happy? This story stirs while humming a little song we all know by heart. Sing it as you read…”If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it then your face will surely show it, if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.”
Does your face show that you’re happy or that sadness dwells within? Recently, I picked up a book from a shelf in Tim’s Gift library titled, ‘Freedom From Depression’ and thumbed through it with no intentions of reading it. However, a chapter titled - Depressed Christians on the Rise - caught my attention.
The author addressed issues about depression being a feeling of sadness, usually brought on by a loss, disappointment, or some type of frustration. Christians can also deal with valleys as well as mountaintops. Believers experience joy and happiness that can be challenged with waves of sadness and discouragement. Staying closely connected to Christ, while guarding our thoughts, ways, and actions when signs of depression knock on our hearts’ doors, can shoo depression away. When we trust God for deliverance and seek help per His guidance, we can eventually have happy faces every day.
So, “Why do we always expect Christians to be bubbly and joyful? Are we any different from people we’ve read about in the Bible who faced discouragement? Poor Job lost it all and cried out in despair, especially when well meaning friends sat by his side in support but wondering why Job was going through torment. David wrote Psalms that echoed heart wrenching cries of depression. Seasons being stuck in caves surely wiped the ‘happy off his face’ ; yet, he stayed true to God’s calling and was a ‘man after His own heart’! Sweet Naomi buried her husband and two sons; yet, stayed strong in a season when depression could have killed her also. Poor Jonah cried out in distress and depression, “Please kill me, Lord: I’d rather be dead than alive.” Jonah 4:3
Elijah became so depressed , even after a great victory over Baal’s prophets, that he wanted to die also. He was so upset when he yelled in despair, “I’ve had enough...Take away my life. I’ve got to die sometime, and it might as well be now.” 1 Kings 19:4
Jeremiah, the weeping prophet of Israel, dealt with sadness every which way he turned. He declared, “What sadness is mine...oh, that I had died at birth...Lord, you know it is for your sake that I am suffering...I have not joined the people in their merry feasts. I sit alone beneath the hand of God” Jeremiah 15:10-17
Even Jesus Christ experienced sadness. He is described as “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Isaiah 53:3
Jesus even wept over the death of his friend Lazarus and shed tears because of the rebellious people in Jerusalem. We know God bottled up those tears shed by His Son, just as He promises to do for all His children. There are times when tears cover our happy faces and joy doesn’t dance in our eyes. A good cry can be healing; however, we must muster up faith and put one foot in front of another as we walk in faith to healing hearts, minds, and bodies the devil schemes to secure and hopes to depress. We can rise above difficult, disgusting, depressing situations when our focus stays on God instead of circumstances that steal joy and make happy faces … sad.
Imagine the discouragement Jesus felt in the Garden when He prayed, “Let this cup pass from me.” Matthew 26:39
Jesus understands us so well in our times of sadness, heartbreak, and hurt because He also endured the pressure of discouragement. God created us to experience various moods and feelings and to stay closely connected to The Vine in order to keep Happy Faces in hard places! Our emotions may go up and down like a see-saw...happiness to sadness - joy to anxiety and tension, love to anger; yet, we can live out loud in love, peace, and tranquility when we keep our hearts and minds focused on our heavenly Father, live by His Son’s ways, allow the Holy Spirit to move us peacefully place to place, and keep a smile that radiates love, peace, and contentment in Christ... on our faces!
Then, we can praise the Lord and sing, "We are happy and we know it and our faces surely show it... we praise God with everything and let our joy ring as this little song we sing... We give the Lord three cheers, get our lives in forward gear, live happily the rest of our years, believing time for Jesus to return is near, yet, we will have no fear... for All is Well with our Souls as we live expectantly with Love for Him ... strong and bold!
