Smile


 

Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
Philippians 4:4-5


There are many writings and teachings about the power of positive thinking. Some people will tell you that those teachings are less than faithful, that it's a mind game. I don't believe that. Our attitudes, our thoughts, are very important. A positive attitude, a smile, a cheerful approach, those things do tend to make even the hard times a bit easier to bear.

Recently I saw a television show that included a young woman with an incredibly sunny attitude. As they did a flashback segment we saw her dealing with adversity, turning around the most humiliating moments as if they were nothing. In other words as life handed her lemons, no, make that, as life threw lemons at her head, most often leaving a big mark and sometimes causing her to fall on her behind, she continually jumped up, dusted herself off and made the best of things. In the flashback scenes we saw her time after time moving on to the next thing with the great confidence that this time would be different. Cockeyed optimism? Perhaps.

The flashback scene occurred because the young woman was worried, the first time her family had ever seen her about to give up, that no one would remember her, that she had in fact not left a mark anywhere. Then she read the messages people had written in her yearbook. Every single one noted her smile, her sunny attitude. She was remembered as the girl who made the best of the worst, who smiled in the face of sure humiliation and great adversity. She was told time and again, that her smile and her cheerfulness had eased the angst of another. Wow!

It may be just a silly television program but that was an amazing point, a huge lesson for all of us. I am certainly not opposed to being given a task for God that would leave a huge legacy. I pray to serve Him and to do great things for Him. Still, after seeing that show my perspective has changed. I want to be the person who smiled through the pain, the one who didn't complain about small setbacks, who trusted that the next attempt was the one that would succeed.

The girl on the show didn't seem to have a resource for her positivity. I do and so do you! We are children of God, drowning in lavish love. (1 John 3:1) We can look forward to home, to heaven. If the very next thing doesn't work out, if it causes embarrassment, if we look foolish trying, so be it. Every attempt we make here may fail but GREAT NEWS.... We're going home! When we get there, if we've done everything in faith, with confidence in Abba's love for us, He will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Applause, Applause and Protection

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, Hebrews 12:1 Reading some Scripture this morning I was reminded of a message that I watched from Louie Giglio. In it Louie described a child of God leaving her home for the day. He goes on about how the heavenly beings see it. With great excitement, he tells of the joy and applause going on in heaven as the woman gets in the elevator, gets to the parking lot and gets in her car. It’s hilarious and over the top, (remember I did say it was Louie Giglio!) but there’s a great lesson in it. My husband and I were watching a TV show about a fictional former president. At one point the poor man is just over the Secret Service detail. He’s tired of them following him around so he fires them. It takes less than five minutes for him to start to see all that they’ve been doing for...
Read more

My Father Saw That

She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me, “for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” Genesis 16:13 There’s a movie from several years ago that I absolutely love! It’s called “The American President.” The premise is that the president, who is a widower, has begun to date. He’s dating a lovely woman while running for reelection. His opponent is awful. He knows he doesn’t have much of a chance against the popular incumbent so he tries to make a mountain out of the molehill of the standing president’s romance. At one point there is a news clip that shows the woman in a protest during her college days. After the clip plays the opponent refers to the president’s lady friend as “the president’s whore.” She groans and says to the president “My father saw that!” She is devastated, not because what is being said is true but because her father, who she loves and respects, saw the clip and heard those words spoken about her. I thought of ...
Read more

Not Really god, where are you?

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning to noon.”Baal answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said, “Surely he is a god! Perhaps his is deep in thought, or busy or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 1 Kings 18:26b-27 Those who know me would be quick to tell you that I am a bit sarcastic. It’s a quality that I have passed on to my children and even some of my grandchildren. Some days I feel a little guilty. Is that really a quality that God wants to see in me? Certainly that cannot be my go to attitude but there are times that it comes in quite nicely. This morning, reading a totally unrelated verse, I was reminded of this account in the first book of Kings. (It begins at verse 16 and continues to the end of the chapter. I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t and it if you have reread it. It’s great!) In this p...
Read more