I noticed again as I ran errands yesterday how few people smile in public. Maybe they do in private, but we’ll never know now, will we? It so stood out to me that I began to smile. I pretended I was in a small town… walking down main street… greeting every passerby as if I knew them personally. But very few people smiled back.
I wondered… Why can’t we just smile? I mean, as Christians, we claim to be full of joy. Well, where is it… deep down inside? How about simply curving those lips upward regularly throughout each day and letting a little of that joy slip out to others?
Determined
I don’t need to make new year’s resolutions. I don’t need to write out a list of goals I plan to achieve. I don’t need to hire a life coach. (At least I don’t think I do. 😉)
No, I am simply determined to be kind… to be thoughtful… to speak encouraging words… to give… maybe even just to smile sometimes… so that anyone I encounter can see the love and joy and peace of Jesus inside me.
That’s not so hard, is it?
But maybe you’ve had a rough year… like a loved one got diagnosed with a serious disease… or you lost your job… or your marriage struggled. And maybe it feels difficult some days to even force a smile.
Don’t give up. Scripture says, “Greater is He who is in you than he that is in the world.” That means you can… if you will. Hang in there!
Find Your Niche
Find your niche… maybe it’s secretly blessing people financially… maybe it’s writing more thank you notes… maybe it’s choosing to post only positive, uplifting thoughts on social media… or maybe it’s simply smiling as much as possible every day to brighten someone else’s day.
2017 looks to be a great year! And that makes me smile. 😀