Sadness & joy

by Maxwell Ryan

“Let’s play a game, little one,” I sang into my daughter’s ear, some years ago.  Eagerly she complied and, dropping her dolls, swung up to my lap and snuggled down.  An impish smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she poked a finger into my ribs with astonishing speed and said “I tickled you”-a statement of invitation as well as of fact.

I declined this overture and instead said, “I want to ask you a question.”

“Well” she said, bright with impatience “what is it?  What’s your question?”

“I want you to tell me what makes you happy” I replied.  She hesitated for a moment or so and then, in a doleful voice, replied “Daddy, I can’t!”  There was a pause and then came the explanation, told with urgency.  “I don’t know what makes me happy, but” and then her voice sparkled with certainty “I do know what makes me sad!”

She is not alone.  You know that, don’t you? Most of us can tell, at a moment’s notice, all of our problems and the concerns that depress us and make our life miserable.

But we are slow to remember the good things.  We are hard put, sometimes, to scare up a few blessings.  And so our days continue in their bleakness as we moan and groan about our lot in life.

Of course, this is not the whole story. It is not even half the story. I find it very significant that one of Jesus’ most consistent promises to His people was that they could receive the gift of joy.

Joy is not emotion-based. Rather it is embraced when we decide to focus on Jesus, while opening our inner life to the empowering Holy Spirit.

The next time you find yourself spouting a litany of complaint, decide instead to nourish the joy and peace that has the taste of Heaven. Good-bye sadness, hello joy!

His word, and his life, had been given; who was he to take them back?

Writer: Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell Ryan is a former Editor in Chief in Canada and the UK. In retirement has been a copy editor of theRubicon and the author of two series on theRubicon - Resurrected Writers and Thinkaloud

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