“Jumping up, he began to walk around. He entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God.” (Acts 3:8, CEB)
I
have a wellness app on my phone that measures things like the number of
steps I take in a day, whether I eat a healthy breakfast, and how many
hours of sleep I get each night. At the end of the day, I sync my step
counter to the app and also plug in answers to various questions it asks
about my health. One of the questions is, “What’s your Mood?” and then
it gives me options (shown above). I usually don’t think too much about
it, other than quickly asking myself, “How was my day?” and then
90 percent of the time, I choose the simple smiley face (the one on the
lower left). A good day. Not a great day, but a good day.
A
question I’ve been asking myself in recent weeks, though, is this: What
makes for a great day? Why don’t I check off the emoji on the lower
right? When I reflect on the crazy amount of things for which I should
be grateful, the lower-right emoji should be my go-to. But it isn’t. I
remain dependent on out-of-ordinary and external circumstances to happen
to me before I declare, “It was a great day!”
I’ve always
admired people who can select the lower-right emoji. They’re leapers,
like the man in this passage from Acts. One could argue that he should
be leaping since Peter and John have just healed him (see the whole
story in Acts 3:1-10), but, still, I love people who exude joy, like Buddy in this scene from “Elf.”
Most people who know me know that I’m not a leaping kind of guy. But
just because I’m more reserved doesn’t mean that I can’t live joy-fully.
Granted, in these uncertain times in our country and in the city where I
live, it can be hard to leap and one wonders if it’s appropriate or
possible to still experience joy. But I cling to the belief that one
can. In the book, “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness,” Desmond Tutu
says, “We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not
despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.” May it be so!