Miller on Monday

The Habit of Happiness

J R Miller

Our habits make us.

Like wheels running on the road, they wear the tracks or ruts in which our life moves. Our character is the result of our habits. We do the same thing over and over a thousand times, and by and by it is part of ourselves.

“Sow a thought and reap an act;
Sow an act and reap a habit;
Sow a habit and reap a character.”

It is proper, therefore, and no misuse of words, to speak of  -
the habit of happiness.

No doubt there is a difference in the original dispositions of people in the quality of cheerfulness or gloom that naturally belongs to them. Some persons are born with a sunny spirit, others with an inclination to sadness. The difference shows itself even in infancy and early childhood. No doubt, too, there is a difference in the influences which affect disposition in the first months and years of life. Some mothers make an atmosphere of joy for their children to grow up in, while others fill their home with complaining, fretfulness, and discontent. Young lives cannot but take something of the tone of the home atmosphere into the disposition with which they pass out of childhood.

Yet, in spite of all that heredity and early education and influence do, each one is responsible for the making of his own character. The most deep seated tendency to sadness can be overcome and replaced by happy cheerfulness.
The gospel of Christ comes to us and tells us that we must be born again, born anew, born from above, born of God - our very nature recreated!
Then divine grace assures us that it is not impossible even for the most unholy life to be transformed into holiness. The being that is saturated with sin can be made whiter than snow. The wolf can be changed into lamblike gentleness. The fiercest disposition can be trained to meekness. There is no nature, therefore, however unhappy it may be because of its original quality or its early training, which cannot, through God’s help, learn the lesson of happiness.

But how are we to get this habit of happiness into our life?

The answer is very simple – just as we get any other habit wrought into our life. There are some people to whom the lesson does not seem hard, for they are naturally cheerful. There are others who seem to be predisposed to unhappiness and who find it difficult to train themselves into joyful mood. But there is no Christian who cannot learn the lesson. The very purpose of divine grace is to make us over again, to give us a new heart. A man who has formed the habit of untruthfulness and then becomes a Christian may not say that he never can learn now to be truthful – that untruthfulness is fixed too obdurately in his being. No evil can be so stained into the soul’s texture that grace cannot wash it white. The love of Christ in one makes him a new man, and whatsoever the old is, it must give way. So, though we have allowed ourselves to drift into a habit of gloom and sadness there is no reason why we should not get our heart attuned to a different key and learn to sing new songs. This is our duty, and whatever is our duty we can do by the help of Christ.

The secret of Christian joy is the peace of Christ in the heart.

Then one is not dependent on circumstances or conditions. St. Paul said he had learned in whatsoever state he was, therein to be content. That is, he had formed the habit of happiness and had mastered the lesson so well, that in no state or condition, whatever its discomforts were, was he discontented. We know well that his circumstances were not always congenial or easy. But he sang songs in his prison with just as cheerful a heart and voice as when he was enjoying the hospitality of some loving friend. His mood was always one of cheer, not only when things went well, but when things went adversely. He was just as songful on his hard days as on his comfortable days.

Then St. Paul gives us the secret of his abiding gladness in the word he uses – “content.”
It means self sufficed. He was self sufficed – that is, he carried in his own heart the springs of his own happiness. When he found himself in any place he was not dependent on the resources of the place for his comfort. The circumstance might be most uncongenial. There might be hardship, suffering, want; but in himself he had the peace of Christ, and this sustained him so that he was content.

There is no other unfailing secret of happiness.

Too many people are dependent upon external conditions – the house they live in, the people they are with, their food, their companions, and the weather, their state of health, the comforts or discomforts of their circumstances. But if we carry with us such resources that things outside us cannot make us unhappy, however uncongenial they may be, then we have learned St. Paul’s secret of contentment -

the Christian’s true secret of a happy life.
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Some food for thought...
How might we begin to develop, or to strengthen,  the habit of happiness in our own life today?
We could start by thanking God for His daily provision for us.
Gratitude creates joy and happiness.
Did we wake up this morning?
Then He has given us a brand new day!
Let's use it to discover the happy graces and signs of His fatherly love and care;
and let's be more thankful for the humble things He gives us every day that we tend to overlook...
Air
Water
Food
Home
Family
Sunshine
Rain
Laughter etc.

and Himself!

Have a happy day, my friends  :-)