A compiled insightful and meaningful view on enjoying life, religiosity vs happiness, happy religion, not taking yourself to seriously and being able to “have a good laugh at yourself” taken from the essay ‘Be So Happy’ by David Berg–slightly adapted.

–HappyPizza

“ Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner, they retire for the night, and go to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend.
“Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
“I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes” replies Watson.
“And what do you deduce from that?”
Watson ponders for a minute.
“Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?”
Holmes is silent for a moment.
“Watson, you idiot!” he says.
“Someone has stolen our tent!”

Be So Happy!

We all need a good sense of humor! “A merry heart does good like medicine!” God created us with a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at things that are funny. So I’m sure He Himself has a sense of humor, especially when I look at some of the things and people He has created and the funny situations He lets them get into. Someone has said that a sense of humor is the ability to see the funny side of a serious situation and to laugh at things when they’re not the way they ought to be.

Like the very formal (religious) preacher who always wore a formal frock coat, and he was so particular about the crease in his trousers that while waiting in his study for his part of the service to begin, during Sunday School he would take them off and hang them up rather than sit down in them! (This actually happened) Until one Sunday morning when he suddenly remembered, just as they were dismissing Sunday School, that he was supposed to make an important announcement to the children, so he quickly jumped up and dashed out of his office onto the platform shouting, “Children, children!–Just a moment!–I have something very important to show you!” As the kids turned around and looked back at him on the platform, for a moment there was a stunned silence, followed by a roar of laughter as they looked at the preacher standing there with the announcement in his hand held high in the air and his bare knees clearly visible above the altar rail! His congregation obviously had a good sense of humor!

However, he did not! For when he looked down to see what they were laughing at, he nearly fainted, and barely managed to stumble back into his office where he collapsed, instead of being able to laugh at himself and his own ridiculous failure to remember to put is pants on before he went on the platform!

Laugh at your own mistakes

There is such a thing as being too serious and too sober about some things and taking some things too seriously, especially yourself! The ability to laugh at yourself and your own silly mistakes is a great asset and helps keep you humble. But he who can’t laugh at his own mistakes or take the mistakes of others with sense of humor either has too much pride or too severe a sense of life, God intended for us to enjoy living and He has given us the ability, the senses and the environment to enjoy it, including Himself, and our main purpose in life, as Martin Luther said, is “to love God and enjoy Him forever!” And I might add, to help others enjoy life by helping them to do the same by telling them of God’s love!

So God created you to enjoy the life he’s given you and to love and enjoy Him forever and to try to help others to do the same!

Quit trying so hard! Let go and let God! Take it easy! Quit taking yourself so seriously! Stop and praise the Lord and have a good laugh at your own weaknesses and ridiculous inabilities to do things or accomplish things.

So relax! Quit trying so hard in your own strength! Smile! You’re on candid camera–God’s candid camera–and He wants you to be happy! Cheer up! Things could be a lot worse, and they probably will be, but why worry about it now! Fret not thyself for tomorrow! Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.(Matthew6:34)

I heartily agree with the young man who (once) wrote me that there is a need for people who believe in God these days to have more of a sense of humor, to be able to laugh at something funny, and mostly themselves, instead of, as he put it, practicing with balls and chains and thumbscrews today so they’ll be able to bear them tomorrow! That’s not the way God does things! He doesn’t make you try to practice suffering today what you’re going to have to suffer tomorrow. He says, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!” You’re not to add more (suffering) to it in preparation for tomorrow, or to try to toughen yourself up for more evil tomorrow! But you’re to enjoy today and take things as they come and let tomorrow take care of itself! As thy day, so shall thy strength be! God gives you power for the hour, grace for the trial–at the hour and when it comes–not before!

So don’t worry about it! When you’re weak, then you’re strong, and His strength is made perfect in your weakness. For His grace is sufficient for you, and He takes the weak things to confound the mighty and the foolish things to confound the wisdom of the wise. For He’s not revealed these things unto the wise and prudent, but unto the simple.

God’s sense of humor

What a sense of humor God has! If God can use you or me, He can use anybody, ’cause we’re nobody, and you oughtta absolutely crack up laughing at yourself and how ridiculous you are instead of trying to be too sober and taking yourself too seriously.

So for God’s sake and your own sake and especially for the sake of those around you, don’t try so hard and take yourself so seriously! It’s gotta be God or you’ll never make it! So why not have a good laugh at yourself and admit that it’s God that’s doing it all through you!

What is most needed in difficult situations?

I once knew a dear old man of God who had worked (doing services for the disadvantaged) in the (formerly) forbidden country of Tibet for twenty-five years during the 1930’s to the 50’s, four years of it behind Communist lines, and I marveled at his humility, his grace, and blithely cheerful spirit as he washed dishes with me while visiting my home, and I thought what a great man he was and what great work he had done and how famous he should have been, and yet here he was doing dishes with me for the rest of the household.

So I asked him a question which I considered he of all people ought to know, and since I was planning to be a to work in service for others myself, I asked him: “What do you think someone who devotes his life to work for others in difficult or sacrificial situations needs the most?”–expecting some solemn and profound answer from his greatly superior wisdom and vast wealth of years of experience. So you can imagine how shocked I was when he said simply, pausing in the dishes with his hands in the sink and looking at me with a sly smile: “A sense of humour!–to be able to laugh when you feel like crying!” He said that, often, under the almost unbearable tension of the most frightening circumstances a good laugh nearly saved their lives and their nerves! After all, if you know the Lord’s going to take care of it somehow, you can afford to smile and to laugh at how impossible the situation is, how ridiculous the circumstances, and you know God’s gotta do a miracle! So why not laugh about it?

We have a happy God

I can remember one time when I was a kid and our family had fallen on hard times we needed a dime for a quart of milk (it was worth a lot more in those days) for breakfast, and we didn’t have a penny, and my Mother said: “Don’t worry, Children, the Lord will supply! Let’s go for a walk before breakfast.” And as we stood on the corner, a brand new dime literally fell out of the sky and tinkled to the sidewalk! We never could figure out how it got there or where it fell from or who dropped it, unless it was God Himself! What a joke!–How funny can you get, dropping dimes from the sky! Who else would run His Business that way? But God likes to do it differently and in many ways that to us are downright ridiculous, outlandishly funny, seemingly impossible, and outright laughable, just to show His Power, that He’s not bound by conventions, traditions, customs, the system, or any kind of impossibilities! It’s really funny the way God runs things!

Of course we do have other things to do besides laugh! But for God’s sake, laugh while you’re doing them!! And most of all, be able to laugh at yourself and a good joke on yourself, because you’re the funniest thing God ever made, and you couldn’t be any more ridiculous! So this ought to help keep you humble! As this young man who wrote about the need for some jokes in our bulletin said: “We need a little more humoriliation!”

Humility the antidote to (religious) self-righteousness

Humor certainly does help to humble you! Nothing like the humiliation of a good joke on yourself to help keep us from getting so self-righteous and so super-sober and severely serious that we can’t enjoy a good joke on ourselves and can’t see how funny we are, how ridiculous we are, how nothing we are, and what a joke we are and what a good laugh God must get out of us!

For God’s sake, why don’t you break down that stupid self-righteous pride of yours and laugh at yourself–at how ridiculous and foolish you are to think you can save the world, when it’s only God that’s doing it through you, showing that even the foolishness of God is greater that the wisdom of men!

Have a good laugh

Have a good laugh at all your troubles! It’ll do you good, and it’ll do God good, because it’ll show Him you’re not worried but you’re still trusting Him!

We all need a good laugh! Have a sense of humor! Keep humble with good humor! Laugh at yourself! Just don’t overdo it, as there’s a time for everything. There’s a time to laugh, and a time to weep–a time for everything. But let’s always be able to smile through our tears–a ray of sunshine is even more beautiful in the midst of rain. Let’s have a little more sunshine and laughter and not so much gloom and doom! Instead of giving the world so much Hell, let’s give it a little more Heaven! “Laugh and the world will laugh with you!–Cry, and you’ll cry alone!”

THE WORLD KNOWS ENOUGH HELL! Let’s show it a little more Heaven–”Love and laughter and peace ever after”, and that today you can be free!

So let’s be happy! Agreed? …

Above (Edited) Excerpts taken from:
1972 “Be So Happy” –ML NO.159
by David Brandt Berg
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family International

Happiness Vs Religiosity (Compiled Quotes)

1. Happy are the people who are in such a state; Happy are the people whose God is the LORD! (Ps.144:15).

2. God created you to enjoy the life He’s given you, and to love and enjoy Him forever, and to try to help others to do the same!

3. A sad world cannot be sweetened by sour religion.

4. Joy that isn’t shared dies young.

5. If I never get any further than this, I’ve had a great time getting this far!

6. God made all the most important essential work in the World enjoyable and delightful and satisfying–eating, loving, sleeping and even our work for Him is a pleasure!

7. God made life for us to enjoy, and I like to enjoy it to the fullest!

8. You’ll never appreciate Joy until you’ve known Sorrow!

9. The time to be happy is now,
And the place to be happy is here,
And the way to be happy is to make others happy
And we’ll have a little Heaven right here!

10. Be cheerful!–Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.

11. The only way on Earth to multiply happiness is to divide it.

12. The kind of people God wants are people that love Him and are happy in Him and love to sing and love and play and dance for the Lord and shout His praises and His salvation from the housetops!

13. Enjoy yourself!–It’s later than you think!

14. When I gave up trying to be perfect I finally became happy.

15. When a bit of sunshine hits you,
After passing of the rain
When a fit of laughter gets you,
And your spine is strong again,
Don’t forget to up and fling it
At a soul that’s feelin’ blue,
For the minute that you sling it,
It’s a boomerang to you!

16. Happiness is thinking about others, not yourself!

17. We’d rather have a religion full of love and joy and happiness!

18. Oh give me a world of madness
If madness is to be glad!
I’d rather be happy in madness
Than only be sane and sad.

19. In the Spirit, in the Spirit
All my life is like a song,
In the Spirit, in the Spirit
I am happy all day long.

20. Find someone else to make happy, and then happiness will find you.

21. Priorities: “Jesus, and Others, then You.”–Spells JOY!

22. It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness.

23. No man can be happy unless he feels his life is in some way important.

24. Life is hard by the yard;
By the inch life’s a cinch!

25. Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

26. Life lived just to satisfy yourself never satisfies anybody.

27. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

28. Though you travel the World over to find the beautiful, you must carry it with you or you’ll find it not.

29. Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like a violin.

30. The best cure for grief is action.

31. Happiness is a rainbow in your heart.

32. The hearts that share one Love, one Life, will always know true joy.

33. Take a cup of kindness, mix it well with love.
Add a lot of patience and faith in God above.
Sprinkle very generously with joy and thanks and cheer,
And you’ll have lots of “angel food”
To feast on all the year.

34. The 10 basic things you need in order to be happy are: Love and understanding; change; recognition; appreciation; challenge; fulfillment or satisfaction; to feel accepted or belong; fellowship or companionship; a goal; and to be helpful to others.

35. How can you be poor when you’re rich in happiness and rich in love!

36. To feel rich, count the things that you have that money can’t buy.

37. The ultimate wealth is happiness!

38. Life–This is one story that hasn’t got any end, because it’s eternal, forever! You can’t say “and that’s the happy ending” because that’s just the happy beginning! But you can say, “And they lived happily ever after!”

39. Gather the crumbs of happiness and they will make you a loaf of contentment.

40. Friendship doubles your joys and divides your grief.

41. The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.
The more that I love Him, more love He bestows.
Each day is like Heaven, my heart overflows.
The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.

42. Is your life bulging with excitement, virility and fruitfulness?!–Or is it dead, dull, sterile, frigid and barren, like most religions!

43. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

44. Every person lives in one of two “tents”–either content or discontent.

45. There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.

46. God is the only One Who can give meaning to the Universe, purpose to the planets, love to your heart, peace to your mind, health to your body, rest to your spirit, happiness to your life and joy to your soul!

47. In some religions the sadder you are, the more religious you are. But I consider that you’re not very spiritual unless you’re happy, victorious and joyful.

Posted by happypizza in God, religion, happy, happy pill, smile, spirit, positive, Happiness religion, free spirit, religiosity vs happiness. Be So Happy.