Be Happy

Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free. -- Isaiah 32:20

I started to post something else, and this may not turn out to be very long, but I was praying and complaining about one problem, as well as confessing about the wrongness of another thing that I had asked for.  The Lord stopped me, and it was as if He said, "I would give you that if it would make you happy.  But it won't."  I really couldn't disagree.  It is often the case that I do not know what would make me happy, and it is possibly the case that, at some level, I fear happiness -- at least some forms of happiness. 

I am rather of the opinion that people who are addicted, whether to food or drugs or buying shoes, have latched onto one thing that "safely" makes them happy.  Sure, there's a downside to it, but it is a known downside.  The problem with some forms of happiness is that we do not know what the dark side of it portends for us.  We prefer the devil we know, and we seem to know instinctively that all heads come with a tail, that silver linings come in clouds, that cheesecake has calories.

Thus, any offer of happiness, for many of us, certainly for me, carries a threat.  I know that I have to give something up for this.  It may be now; it may be tomorrow.  But I know it's going to hurt me.  God bless poor old Gram, wherever he is, and God bless Emmylou, but I think it's about time to stop living in a sad country song. 

What I forget is grace.  What I forget is the cross.  Yes, there is some hurt and loss involved in life.  Jesus knows all about it, knows the depth of it, bore it, paid it -- for the joy set before Him -- He endured the cross and despised all the shame associated with that suffering and even death.  When the hurting comes to me, if I understand, it is transformed in passing through Christ as rain makes rainbows.   

Jesus has sown beside all waters.  He has turned us loose on the open range.  We can stray or stay close, but we can, wherever we are, kick up our heels, roll and ramble and enjoy the freedom we have been given.  I want to be close enough to hear His call, close enough that if I step off in some quicksand, He can pull me out.  But the halter and the hobbles are off, and the Master doesn't mind if an old mule meanders in green pastures, beside still waters.  It makes them both happy.