Rejoicing

Since 2002, the World Happiness Report has used statistical analysis to determine the world’s happiest countries. In its 2024 update, the report concluded that Finland is the happiest country in the world.

To determine the world’s happiest country, researchers analyzed comprehensive Gallup polling data from 143 countries for the past three years, specifically monitoring performance in six particular categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels.

Six out of the top seven happiest countries in the world for 2024 were Northern European countries. Finland took top honors—for the tenth year in a row—with an overall score of 7.741, followed (in order) by Denmark (7.583), Iceland (7.525), Sweden (7.344), Israel (7.341), the Netherlands (7.319), and Norway (7.302).

Where does the United States rank on the list of the world’s happiest countries? The United States rank 23rd with a score of 6.73. (This was below the UK (#20), Slovenia (#21), and the United Arab Emirates (#22).

The least happy country in the world for 2024 was Afghanistan, whose 143rd-place ranking of 1.721 can be attributed in part to a low life expectancy rate, low gross domestic product rates per capita, and perhaps most importantly, the recent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Rounding out the bottom five are Lebanon (2.707), Lesotho (3.186), Sierra Leone (3.245), and DR Congo (3.295).

You can view the entire report here

Possible Preaching Angle:

This article did overlook the happiest country – the “heavenly country” that we pilgrims anticipate: “Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16); "You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." (Psalm 16:11).

Googly eyes have been appearing on sculptures around the central Oregon city of Bend, delighting many residents and sparking a viral sensation covered widely by news outlets. On social media, the city shared photos of googly eyes on installations in the middle of roundabouts that make up its so-called “Roundabout Art Route.” One photo shows googly eyes placed on a sculpture of two deer, while another shows them attached to a sphere.

A Facebook post received hundreds of comments, with many users saying, “We love the googly eyes. This town is getting to be so stuffy. Let’s have fun!”

Now, after months of speculation, the mystery of the googly eyes has finally been solved. Jeff Keith is the founder of the nonprofit Guardian Group that combats human trafficking. But in his free time Keith apparently also battles boredom, because he claimed responsibility for placing googly eyes on public art sculptures around the city of Bend, Oregon.

Keith, who used duct tape to attach the googly eyes, admitted, “It’s a (way) for me to cope with some pretty heavy stuff," Keith said to an AP reporter. He noted the "unimaginable trauma" that many of the trafficking victims he's worked with have experienced.

The city of Bend shared photos of the googly-eye-decorated art, noting that adhesives can damage the art. According to city officials, eight sculptures were affected, and it cost $1,500 to remove all the googly eyes.

Keith said he didn’t anticipate the attention and offered to pay for any damages. After he came forward, a spokesperson for the city said its post had been misunderstood, and that the intention was to raise awareness about the damage adhesives can do to public art.

Keith hopes his pranks bring humor to people's lives. “I think the biggest thing is, for me, just to get a laugh,” he said. “When I come up on these roundabouts and I see families laughing, like hysterically laughing at these, it makes for a good time.”

Editor’s Note: You can see an example of the googly eyes here

Possible Preaching Angle:

While it is never a good idea to deface public art or buildings, we can appreciate the attempt to bring humor into people’s lives. As Proverbs says, “a cheerful heart is good medicine” (Prov. 17:22).

For Mike Witmer, it began as a neighborly holiday game. Now it has become an enduring tribute. The Witmer’s Christmas lights were already up when Mike heard that his daughter’s friend from the swim team, Kevin, age 11, was coming home from the hospital, having been hospitalized with cancer. So, Mike decided to write “Get Well Kevin” in lights, and Mike’s wife told Kevin’s folks to swing through their court on their way home from the hospital.

Kevin loved the display, and he asked his mom, “Do you think Mr. Witmer will put my name in lights every year?” When Mike heard that his heart crushed and he thought, “Well, how can I not?” Kevin’s cancer went into remission, but every year Mike would hide the words “Hi” and “Kevin” in his display for Kevin to find it--like a Where’s Waldo? game between them.

Sadly, Kevin’s cancer returned, and he died at age 19. Mike spoke at Kevin’s funeral, telling the mourners he’d be making his “Hi Kevin” sign bigger that year, so Kevin would be able to see it from heaven. It has been on Mike’s garage roof every Christmas ever since.

“In the beginning,” Mike said, “my annual ‘Hi Kevin’ was just a silly gesture to a really nice kid who had been through some tough times. But it has been my honor to keep the salute going for his friends and family.”

Shon Hopwood grew up in a Christian home in rural Nebraska. When his high-school basketball career faded and college and the military fell through, he was left with a complete lack of purpose. So, it sounded like a good idea when his best friend suggested they rob a bank.

They robbed five banks with guns. Shon knew it was wrong. Still, he couldn’t stop because of the easy money and party lifestyle that it brought him. It ended when he was arrested by the FBI and sentenced by a federal judge to 12 years in federal prison. He was 23.

Shon took a job in the prison law library. He began learning the law. Over the years he took on fellow prisoners’ cases, writing petitions they would then file in federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Fellow prisoners began calling him a “jailhouse lawyer.”

His next cell-door neighbor, Robert, would grumble about missing out on the lives of his children and he ranted about a friend who had turned against him and testified at his trial. He said he wished that guy would die. It was clear to Shon that the bitterness of life and prison had consumed him.

Shon said,

One day I walked over to Robert’s cell and watched as he smiled and danced around while sweeping the floor. My first thought was that he had scored some drugs. But when I asked why he seemed so different, he said, ‘Shon, I’m with Jesus now.’ Within days Robert had forgiven the man who had testified against him. Today, Robert is back on his farm with his family, and once a week he treks back into prison to lead a men’s Bible study.

Robert was neither the first nor the last prisoner I saw experience a complete and utter life turnaround. These inmates had a great effect on me because I saw how grace can transform everyone, even prisoners.

Shon was released in 2009, during the heart of the recession, when work was hard to find, especially for a former inmate. But then another grace arrived: He found a position at a leading printer of Supreme Court briefs in Omaha, helping attorneys perfect their briefs.

Shon became engaged but the pastor would not marry them without premarital counseling. During the first session, the pastor asked what they believed about Jesus. Shon said, “When he talked about grace, that free gift of salvation, I listened, especially when he said that I could be forgiven. ‘Yeah, even you, Shon.’ I couldn’t escape the feeling that God had been pursuing me for a long time.”

Shon writes:

In Ephesians 1:7–8, Paul writes that in Christ “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” Grace says we are not defined by our failures and our faults, but by a love without merit or condition. God’s grace was enough to redeem me.

Nearly five years have passed since I made the most important decision of my life: to surrender to this grace. I got married, and my wife also became a believer. We moved to Seattle so I could attend the University of Washington Law School on a full-ride scholarship. Looking back over the course of my life, I can see that although I rarely returned the favor, God hotly pursued me.

Editor’s Note: Today Shon Robert Hopwood is an author, appellate lawyer, and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Federal law enforcement officers were dispatched to the Gold Coast Airport in Queensland, Australia after a drunk, disorderly woman refused to follow the crew’s instructions. Jetstar Airlines explained the situation in a brief statement afterward. “The safety of our customers and crew is our number one priority and we have zero tolerance for disruptive behavior.”

The woman, who one TikTok user referred to as a “drunk Karen,” clearly wore out her welcome among the nearby passengers who had to endure her belligerent behavior. On the posted TikTok video, police can be seen entering the plane and forcibly removing her from the aircraft, while onlookers began chanting the chorus to a 1969 hit from the band Steam. “Na na nahhh na, na na nahh na, hey hey hey … goodbye.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the words of the ancient African American proverb: “God don't like ugly.” While we're not to seek vengeance because it belongs to God, it's natural to be relieved when wrongdoers experience the consequences of their actions.

William McRavenwas, commander of US Special Force Command, gave an oft-quoted speech at a university graduation in Texas in 2014. He spoke of his experiences in becoming a US Navy SEAL. SEAL training is regarded as being the toughest in the world. McRaven spoke about his Hell Week at Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL (BUD/S) training:

The ninth week of SEAL training is referred to as Hell Week. It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment and one special day at the Mud Flats. The Mud Flats are an area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana sloughs—a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you. You paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing-cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure from the instructors to quit.

As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud flat, it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up—eight more hours of bone-chilling cold. The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night—one voice raised in song.

The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing.

We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing persisted. And somehow, the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

It is said that George Frederick Handel composed his amazing musical The Messiah in approximately three weeks. It was apparently done at a time when his eyesight was failing and when he was facing the possibility of being imprisoned because of outstanding bills. Handel however kept writing in the midst of these challenges till the masterpiece, which included the majestic, “Hallelujah Chorus,” was completed.

Handel later credited the completion of his work to one ingredient: Joy. He was quoted as saying that he felt as if his heart would burst with joy at what he was hearing in his mind. Sure enough, listening either to the entire work of The Messiah, or to the "Hallelujah Chorus" brings great joy to one's heart.

Similarly, in the midst of the many challenges he faced, including chains, imprisonment, and slander, the Apostle Paul, filled with the joy that Christ gives, could say, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" (Phil. 4:4). May the joy of the Lord fill your heart today!

When the prospect of war threatened the viability of the annual international classical Kharkiv Music Fest, organizers were left scrambling. But their answer was found in the same place as many other Ukrainians looking for shelter amidst the conflict: underground.

Instead of the Kharkiv Philharmonic concert hall, musicians assembled their instruments inside of an underground subway station. They played their instruments for a grateful public in an ad hoc event known as the “concert between explosions.”

Among the first pieces was the Ukrainian national anthem, played while members of the audience stood with their hands over the hearts. Art director Vitali Alekseenok said, “Music can unite. It’s important now for those who stay in Kharkiv to be united.”

The program was intended to highlight the connections between Ukraine and other Western Europeans. It included arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs, interspersed with works by Bach, Dvorak, and other well-known composers.

One violinist said that the concert was unique among his performance experiences. “There was no stage excitement that usually happens when performing for people. But I knew that I was where I should be.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even in a time of deadly conflict, music and art are gifts that can point us back to God.

What's it like to walk free again after years behind bars? Lee Horton and his brother Dennis know the feeling. They were convicted of robbery and murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. They always maintained their innocence. Earlier this year, after being locked up for a quarter of a century, they were granted clemency and released.

Here's Lee Horton’s story:

I'm going to tell you honestly. The first thing that I was aware of when I walked out of the doors and sat in the car and realized that I wasn't handcuffed. And for all the time I've been in prison, every time I was transported anywhere, I always had handcuffs on. And that moment right there was … the most emotional moment that I had. Even when they told me that the governor had signed the papers … it didn't set in until I was in that car and I didn't have those handcuffs on.

And I don't think people understand that the punishment is being in prison. When you take away everything, everything becomes beautiful to you. ... When we got out … we went to the DMV to get our licenses back. My brother and I stood in line for two and a half hours. And we heard all the bad things about the DMV. We had the most beautiful time. And all the people were looking at us because we were smiling and we were laughing, and they couldn't understand why we were so happy. And it just was that - just being in that line was a beautiful thing.

I was in awe of everything around me. It's like my mind was just heightened to every small nuance. Just to be able to just look out of a window, just to walk down a street and just inhale the fresh air, just to see people interacting. ... It woke something up in me, something that I don't know if it died or if it went to sleep. I've been having epiphanies every single day since I've been released.

One of my morning rituals every morning is I send a message of ‘good morning, good morning, good morning, have a nice day’ to every one of my 42 contacts. And they're like, ‘how long can (he) keep doing this?’ But they don't understand that I was deprived. And now, it's like I have been released, and I've been reborn into a better day, into a new day. Like, the person I was no longer exists. I've stepped through the looking glass onto the other side, and everything is beautiful.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This enthusiastic testimony is an exact parallel to that of a person set free from a lifetime of captivity to Satan (2 Tim. 2:26). The experience of God’s glorious freedom and new life in Christ results in a joyful expression of gratitude and amazement (Acts 3:8).

The happiest place in medicine right now is a basketball arena in New Mexico. Or maybe it’s the parking lot of a baseball stadium in Los Angeles, or a shopping mall in South Dakota. The happiest place in medicine is anywhere there is vaccine, and the happiest people in medicine are the ones plunging it into the arms of strangers.

“It’s a joy to all of us,” says “Nana” Poku, a nurse vaccinating people in Northern Virginia.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience in my career that has felt so promising and so fulfilling,” says Christina O’Connell, at the University of New Mexico.

For health-care workers, the opportunity to administer the vaccine has become its own reward. Giving hope to others has given them hope, too. In some clinics, so many nurses have volunteered for vaccine duty that they can’t accommodate them all.

The arrival of “The Shot” has transformed the grim pop-up clinics of the pandemic into gratitude factories—assembly lines where Americans could begin to put back together their busted psyches. Pharmacy manager Ebram Botros said, “I will never forget the face of the first person I vaccinated. It was an 80-year-old man who said that he hadn’t seen his children or grandchildren since last-March.”

Corie Robinson, a nurse in D.C., was selected to give the ceremonial first vaccinations on camera at a Dec. 17 news conference. The positivity has buoyed her spirits. She said of her patients, “You can see their smiles through their masks.” One elderly man sang while he got his shot. Others request pamphlets about the vaccine because they want to put them in time capsules.

Robinson said, “I say quite often, this is probably the most important thing I’ll ever do in my career. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming because you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m the keeper.’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians experience an even greater joy seeing the faces of those who receive Christ as Savior! It is time of rejoicing when someone passes from death to life and can literally be the most important thing you will do in your life.

When French impressionist painter Auguste Renoir was confined to his home during the last decade of his life, Henri Matisse was nearly 28 years younger than him. The two great artists were dear friends and frequent companions. Matisse visited him daily. Renoir, almost paralyzed by arthritis, continued to paint in spite of his infirmities. He had to hold his brush between his thumb and index finger. As he painted, students often heard him crying out in pain.

One day as Matisse watched the elder painter work in his studio, fighting torturous pain with each brush stroke, he blurted out, “Auguste, why do you continue to paint when you are in such agony?” Renoir said, “The pain passes but the beauty remains.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

If we were to speak to Jesus on resurrection morning, He might have said the same thing. The pain of the Cross has passed, but the beauty remains: The beauty of new creation, the beauty of an army of disciples that spans the millennia, the beauty of a kingdom established in the hearts of his people, all this remains. But it may be that you are going through pain just now and you can’t see an end to that pain. Can you trust that out of the pain will come a beauty that will last forever? Give that pain to God and ask him show you its beauty.

Author Dane Ortlund quotes Thomas Goodwin’s statement, “Christ’s own joy, comfort, happiness, and glory are increased … by his showing grace and mercy, in pardoning, relieving, and comforting his members here on earth.”

Ortlund then gave the following illustration:

A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease. He has had his medical equipment flown in. He has correctly diagnosed the problem, and the antibiotics are prepared and available. He is independently wealthy and has no need of any kind of financial compensation. But as he seeks to provide care, those who are afflicted refuse the care. They want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided.

What does the doctor feel? Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It’s the whole reason he came.

So, with us, and so with Christ. He does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness, for renewed pardon, with distress and need and emptiness. That’s the whole point. It’s what he came to heal.

Joy, it seems, is everywhere these days. It is used to sell boxes at Ikea. It is included in ads for drinks at McDonald’s and there are T-shirts that tout joy as “an act of resistance.” There is the “Chasing Joy” podcast. And a number of books are being published each year devoted to joyful living, including marriage and productivity.

But if joy is everywhere, why does happiness feel so elusive? Politics in America has divided into two camps: angry and angrier. Our world is threatened by climate change. And the booming United States economy is showing signs of fatigue. Douglas Abrams, author of The Book of Joy, said “In an age of despair, choosing joy is a revolutionary act.”

So, are we living in a post-happiness world? According to the World Happiness Report happiness in the United States is declining. Americans said they were less content in 2018 than a year earlier, ranking No. 19 behind Australia and Canada. The 24-hour news cycle, combined with the onslaught of natural disasters, social upheaval, and political strife, has left Americans exhausted. Worse, the agitation shows no sign of abating; psychologists suggest anxiety is on the rise.

A nine-year-old boy whose expression of amazement sparked applause and a viral video sensation has since been invited back by the orchestra as a special guest. Nine-year-old Ronan Mattin caused quite a stir during The Handel and Haydn Society’s performance of Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music. During a moment of silence, the boy couldn’t contain himself, exclaiming “Wow!” The crowd of concertgoers burst into laughter, and then applause. Orchestra CEO David Snead called it “One of the most wonderful moments I’ve experienced in the concert hall.”

Mattin’s grandparents were initially reluctant when they heard that orchestra personnel were looking to reach out to the boy, mostly because they thought he might be in trouble. But those fears were allayed when he and his grandparents were invited back to Boston’s Orchestra Hall for a special dress rehearsal performance of A Mozart Celebration.

Dubbed “the Wow Child,” Mattin, who is on the autism spectrum, said few words during his return, but expressed plenty of his famous enthusiasm. “He was tapping the window and jumping up and down,” said Claire Mattin, his grandmother.

Artistic Director Harry Christophers said that Mattin’s exuberance put his job in perspective. He said, “These sort of moments … actually just make us realize exactly what we’re here doing. We’re here to give people a release from their daily existence. With Ronan, it’s spontaneous, it’s an innocence, it’s just lovely.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Jesus told his disciples that unless they become like children, they could not inherit God’s kingdom. Sometimes the only appropriate response to an internal moment of joy is an outward expression, and to hold it back is to deprive others from sharing in that joy.

Do you know what the word gospel means? Euangelion. It means literally the joy news. J.R.R. Tolkien, says there’s a kind of story … that brings us unbelievable joy … He says these stories always have a certain kernel to them. There’s always some incredibly hopeless situation, and victory is snatched out of the jaws of defeat. But how? Always through someone who comes in, and whose weakness turns out to be strength, someone whose defeat turns out to be a victory. He says it’s those kinds of stories that just seem to bring us joy. He called them eucatastrophes.

Do you know what the word eucatastrophe means? The joyful catastrophe. The tragedy that turns out to be a triumph. The sacrifice that turns out to bring joy. He said, however, there’s a Eucatastrophe of the eucatastrophes. There is a Story in all of the stories. He believes there’s a bass string to the human heart, and those stories can kind of make it reverberate a little bit but can’t pluck it.

Tolkien says the gospel story is the only story that will pluck that string so the whole heart never stops reverberating and vibrating with joy. The reason it will reverberate is … this is the reality to which all of the other stories point. It happened. It really happened. There really is a hero who defeats the villain. There really is Jesus. The word gospel means the joy news. Joy. It’s real. You have to have it.

You can read the sermon here.

They may go overboard with their tidings of comfort and joy, but as it turns out, the early Christmas decorators among us may actually be doing themselves—and the rest of us—good.

Scientists at Temple University and the University of Utah published a study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, and among its findings were the indication that people whose homes are decorated communicate a sense of friendliness and cohesiveness with neighbors.

Simply put, those people tend to happier. Psychoanalyst Steve McKeown elaborates:

“There could be a number of symptomatic reasons why someone would want to obsessively put up decorations early, most commonly for nostalgic reasons either to relive the magic or to compensate for past neglect. In a world full of stress and anxiety people like to associate things that make them happy, and Christmas decorations evoke those strong feelings of the childhood.”

McKeon continues, “Decorations are simply an anchor or pathway to those old childhood magical emotions of excitement. So putting up those Christmas decorations early extend the excitement!”

According to the authors of the study, those warm feelings of joy and excitement are transmitted not only within the home, but from neighbor to neighbor when the decorations are visible from outside the home.

The study did not elaborate, however, on how many holiday jingles it takes to wear down your resistance to impulse-buying chocolate while in line at the drugstore.

Potential preaching angles:

Like Mary when she heard the good news, we are blessed when we express our joy at God’s movement among us. Leaning into the spirit of the season helps make it possible to endure the difficult moments.

In Break Open The Sky, Steve Bauman describes the opening scene of Happy, a documentary that explores the nature of happiness, where we meet Manoj Singh, a rickshaw driver from India. He lives with his wife and three children in a one-room home constructed of rusted corrugated metal held together with plastic tarps. When asked about his life, he said, "I am not poor, but I am the richest person." He proudly talks about his work as a rickshaw driver in the crowded streets, the monsoons, sweltering heat, and occasional abuse from drunk passengers as mere inconveniences. He said his home is "good" even though it doesn't protect his family from the monsoons. Sometimes they can afford only rice with a bit of salt. "But we are still happy," he said.

Stunning. How could Manoj say he is happy when, from our perspective, the most basic elements of happiness are absent? Manoj and his family function near the bottom caste in a country that claims it has graduated from such a system. They are eking out a living amid grinding poverty. Their home is ramshackle, exposed, without title or deed. There is no running water or sanitation to speak of Manoj's kids have little chance for quality education. Any disruption-drought, illness, economic downturn-could sabotage their very chance of survival.

But somehow in the midst of all this, Manoj is happy.