Happy Like Jesus

I have decided on a few goals for the next year.  One that I will be sharing through this blog is that I want to be Happy Like Jesus.  That’s the title of a new book I tripped over this morning.  When I saw the chapters, that they are all about taking on an attribute of Jesus so that we can be happy as He is, I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do. 

I tired of the traditional goals of exercising more and losing weight and other such ideas that get overdone years ago.  A few years back I decided from now on my goals are going to be more meaningful and have an eternal perspective.  That first year I just wanted to have more faith.  I’ve been working on that ever since and have seen quite a bit of improvement as well as a need to keep going.  Last year I tackled two big ones: stop judging others and forgive quickly.  Again, seen improvement, need much more. 

A big stumbling block for me in the last year or so has been that there are so many things going wrong in this country and the world that I’ve started to worry and to lose sight of how faith drives away all fear.  In an effort to stop the fear, I have wanted to stop looking at the news, but then I don’t want to be ignorant of what is going on.  Quite a dilemma.  With that quandary in the back of my mind, I found this book and read the intro and first chapter which tackles the question: How can Jesus be happy when all around Him, He sees sin, pride, disbelief, hatred and even personal attacks on Him?  Heber C. Kimball said, “I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have His Spirit.”  So am I.  I am at my happiest when I can feel the presence of the Holy Ghost. 

So if God and His Son, knowing all that is, that ever was and that ever will be, are happy, I can be happy too.  My goal this year is to find that happiness that exists in the midst of trials and suffering.  That happiness is found by living as a true disciple of Christ.  Jesus said, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  In the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5, He tells us that we are blessed or happy if we are humble in spirit, mourn and are compassionate, are meek, hunger and thirst after righteousness, are merciful and pure in heart, are peacemakers, and if we are persecuted because of Him.

As D. Kelly Ogden said in Happy Like Jesus, “True disciples of Christ have an obligation to be cheerful, hopeful, and optimistic about the future.”  We just celebrated Christmas, in which we were reminded that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is glad tidings of great joy unto all people.  Instead of focusing on all the bad things that are happening, we need to focus on all the good that is happening.  We need to be talking about and furthering the work of the Savior.  We need to follow His example and be positive and optimistic.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has said that, with the comforting words the Savior has spoken to us, we should not be unhappy, worried or gloomy.   He reminds us that, “On that very night [of Gethsemane], the night of the greatest suffering the world has ever known or ever will know, [the Savior] said, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. . . . Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid’ (John 14:27). I submit to you that [this] may be one of the Savior’s commandments that is, even in the hearts of otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed.”

Those who have an eternal perspective are optimistic and happy despite all the horrors playing out around us now.  They know that good will triumph over evil, that Jesus has conquered sin and death and that Satan will be put down. 

After Jesus washed the feet of his apostles at the Last Supper, He said, “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you….If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”  (John 13:15, 17) 

If we follow His example, we can and will be happy, no matter what.  Next year I am going to stop focusing on Satan’s side of the war and focus on the Lord’s side.  I will do my best to become more like Jesus.  For someone who has suffered depression as much as I have, saying I am going to be happy like Jesus is very significant.  I can do it.  I know I can, and if I can, I know others can as well.  I invite my followers to take this journey with me.