Don’t permit yourself to be mad.

Yesterday was a good day for our Church. We had one of our biggest crowds since our battle with Covid-19 started. Several guests were checking out the Church for the first time. We had a public confession of faith at Baptism by a woman who has been thinking about it for a year. The weekly offerings are still good for our Church, enabling us to give more money away to a Christian youth home we support. The Church board that is made up of elders, deacons, and staff had a great meeting. We made decisions, fellowshipped, and laughed. It was a wonderful day.

After Church, I made the slow slide into darkness that happens to preachers on Sunday afternoons. All I could see was the downside of everything. That family didn’t show up. These people helped in one program but did not worship in the other one. I think that family is gone forever. Not to mention, I kept replaying the sermon because I forgot a scripture in the first program and then threw it back in even though it didn’t fit. Then there was that one conversation, did I come off as mean when I said that?

Depression comes when I cannot see the good things God is doing because of a few evil thoughts. Part of the issue is that I allow myself to think like this, and that seems shaped by my unwillingness to be happy. You see, if I am happy, then it looks like I am not taking the things of God seriously enough. If I am happy, then I don’t genuinely care about those missing on Sunday morning. If I am genuinely happy, then I am not feeling the burden that comes with hard work. My solution is to be unhappy.

What would my life be like if I gave myself permission to be happy? What if I enjoyed the blessing of God above the struggles?

What would your life be like if you did the same thing? What if this week was set aside as a week of joy?

Give yourself permission to be happy, because you and I don’t need to carry the weight of the world. God is the only one big enough to handle it.