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We took our boys to Disneyland for three days last week during their fall b reak. It was my first time. During the three days there and walking through thousands upon thousands of people, I only saw one heated argument and two kids throwing fits … ours was one of them. Simply amazing.
That got me to thinking, why were thousands of people so relaxed and well behaved … was it Disney or the people? Well, as I looked around there was a healthy cross section of people … rich, poor, white, Hispanic, Asian, black, male, female, young, old and everything in between were walking around being courteous and many had smiles on their faces.
Not all could be that good in everyone’s life, could it?
They say Disney is the happiest place on the earth. I didn’t know what quite to think of that before this last week, but now I do.
The cast members at Disney set the tone from the get go. They go out of their way to create a relaxed and happy place … someplace where you can escape your worries and be joyful … a magic kingdom.
That got me to thinking. Do we as Christians go out the way to create a relaxed and joyful place wherever we are? After all, the greatest thing in the world happened to us … the Good News broke into our lives and rescued us from being separated from God forever.
This simple fact creates joy in our lives … or at least that’s what the Bible tells us.
But does the Good News really create joy in us? For many of us it does, but I have run across some very bitter, resentful or hypercritical Christians who are rarely joyfully. I imagine you have as well.
I can’t imagine how difficult it is to have see thousands upon thousands of people with their quirks on full display and keep a joyful attitude throughout the day. Yet, they do … some of them are born like this, but many of them are not. They simply learn by doing over and over.
Imagine for a moment if Christians as a collective body were intentional about setting a joyful tone with their families, co-workers, friends, and neighbors because of what God has done for them?
I would imagine that we would become more humble and relaxed; that there would be fewer arguments and more laughter; that there would be a strange detachment to our problems because we are not letting our problems define us, but rather allowing God to define us.
How would that change our lives? How would that change our cities?
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