How many times have you said, “boy, I’ll be happy when ______________” and that blank can be filled anything. Or how many times have you sat back an thought to yourself, “I can not wait for ______________ and ____________ to happen, then I will be so happy. I know that I am guilty of basing my happiness on things, people, places, and accomplishments. I use to think that good things had to happen or things had to be going the right way in order for me to be really happy. I faked it until I made it but my happiness was always short lived and then I was off searching for my next “happiness fix.” It was an endless cycle that eventually got really tiring. I am so thankful that God lead me to the knowledge that I am about to share with you because now I am able to be happy all the time.

“ This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24) When Paul used the words, “we will” he was stating the deciding factor of the statement. We often state that verse but do we decide to be happy or are we saying that we will be happy as long as we get what we want or if everything goes right? We can decide to happy. That’s right, being happy is a choice. We can be happy or we can be unhappy, it is up to us. It is a decision that is completely up to us. And nobody can make us unhappy unless we allow them to. Have you ever really sat back and thought about that? We may not like what they do or say, or we may not like what they do to us, but we don’t have to let them steal our happiness. So we can decide to be happy and to not let anyone take it away from us. It all starts with a decision that we get to make. Either be happy or not. It is that simple. I know that you are probably saying, “yeah, right, you just don’t know what I am going through.” I am not trying to make light of your situation but you can choose to be happy even though things are hard right now and be able to get through it much more calmer or you can choose to be unhappy and still have to deal with the issue at hand while being miserable at the same time. Once I learned that I could have joy in my heart while going through tough things I decided to try it and haven’t looked back since.

If we are going to decide to be happy we are going to have to pay attention to what we are focusing on. Our thoughts are the enemies play ground and if we have a bunch of bad, sad, or negative thoughts it will interrupt our happiness. We have to decide that we are not going to sit around and entertain bad, negative thoughts. We may have to purposely think about good and uplifting things or “fake it til we make it” in the beginning, but the more that we do it the more natural the thoughts will come. Our emotions come about from our thoughts. So think good and you can feel good, think bad and you will feel bad.

There are many things that we can do to increase our level of happiness momentarily, but the only way that we can have constant joy in our heart is to know that this is the day that the Lord has made and choose to be happy in it. Waiting until something good happens or thinking that we can not be happy unless something good is happening is a waste of time and a sure way to keep ourselves unhappy. We can choose to be happy on Monday and every other day of the week if we want to. We can even be happy when we are faced with hard times. Because our circumstances do not have to determine what level of joy that we have we can choose to still be happy even when things are bad. Just think of how much easier a situation would be if you chose to be happy while going through it. I know that it may not be easy to not be consumed with bad emotions when you are facing a difficult time but you can make the difficult time easier by choosing to stay joyful during it. There are things that we can choose to think about that will raise our level of thankfulness and joy at any moment but we have to purposely think about them. I am not making light of those that suffer from real depression. But I have found through my own depression that I can either contribute to it or I can fight against it and make the decision that I want to be happy and I am going to do what I can to bring joy to myself. It all comes down to a choice that we get to make. What will you choose?