09/19/2025
A friend once asked me the question, “Are you happy?” It was almost as she had slapped me. Why?
My answer to her was that I was happy having Jesus in my life, but I wasn’t happy with how my life had turned out. Sound familiar? The reason that I was not happy wasn’t because I was a “Christian” instead, it was because I was a miserable Christian.
You see, God requires many things of me; Most of the time I get off to a great start and just as I get going as fast as I can, I crash into a brick wall. I know I should get back up and try to get myself up and going again, but most of the time, somehow I just cannot. It is during these times in my life that I need someone to ask, “Are you happy Roselynn?”
My friend was sad because she thought she made me sad. As for me, at first I was sad, and then Jesus went to work on me. He showed me that it wasn’t the journey that had made me sad; it had been the speed that I wanted to travel that caused my greatest disappointments. I had looked for too many shortcuts along the way. I had chosen the happy looking trail. I didn’t want to climb tall, jagged looking mountains and as a result, I had never climbed out of the valleys that God had already delivered me from. The Lord was with me and I was happy about that. However, I failed to see the freedom which I sought that was already all around me. I had stopped climbing when my hurrying had caused me to crash. On the surface, the face put out there for others to see made me look happy, when inside, I was anything but.
How about you, are you happy? Are you walking through life perhaps feeling the same way that I do from time to time? If so, my friend I ask you to do what I needed to do, stop, breathe, and find a new route. What works for you in Matthew may not work this trip. Turn to James or the writings of Peter. Go to God in prayer and tell him that you messed up. Tell him that you got impatient and didn’t wait on him, and his timing. Don’t let a temporal setback become a lifetime of misery. God has freed us from misery through the blood of Jesus Christ! Claim that victory, and live boldly, and happily ever after in Him.
Father, I thank you for using our friends to draw attention to issues that we need to address along life’s journey. I thank you for your Word that gives me the answers that I need when I seek and find them. I thank you for the pages in my Bible that speak to me through your Holy Spirit Lord. Father, I ask that you continue to use our loved ones to ask us questions that cause us to reflect upon our relationship with you, and to seek forgiveness and guidance, to continue our travels toward eternity with you. May we listen and obey when you redirect our steps, and do so without murmuring and hesitation.
Father, I thank you for today’s lesson on humility; may we use it to cause us to stop being miserable and rally in “The Joy of The Lord” and become a “happy Christian!”
In His Service,
Roselynn