Religion can be an overridingly serious business. Now, I am serious about my Jesus. But so many of us have grown up on a steady diet of “thou shalt nots,” in which our religious teachers showed us what was off-limits rather than showing us how we might flourish in God’s love. Some of us grew up believing that we were meant for martyrdom more than merriment.
We’ve sat under teachings that created a dichotomy between holiness and happiness. Happiness seemed off-limits, even sinful. But take a walk through the pages of Scripture. Flip through the pages, and watch how words like happy, glad, feasting, pleasure, joy, and delight flash in front of your eyes.
Even when the words aren’t used explicitly, we know inherently that nearly every page of Scripture reveals the reason for a human being’s deepest happiness. On the pages of our Bibles, we see a faithful God, a sovereign God, a loving God, a delighting God, a listening God, a saving God, a redeeming God, a God who is “for us”—even a happy God.
“Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation! And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people will be a source of joy” (Isaiah 65:18). What kind of God creates Jerusalem as “a place of happiness?”
Our happy God. That’s who.
Jennifer Dukes Lee is the author of The Happiness Dare. You can connect with her on Twitter and Instagram at @dukeslee. Take her quiz at www.TheHappinessDare.com and discover what truly makes you happy. This devotion is adapted from The Happiness Dare copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Dukes Lee. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
