KEEP YOUR SMILE UP!!!

When my kid sister was born, we all adored her. One thing that was prevalent was her awesome smile! And years later, she still has an awesome smile. She smiles at anything and at everything! Ask her how she is, she smiles. Ask her if she’s hungry, she smiles. Scold her, she smiles while explaining. Tease her, she smiles while asking that you please stop. She just keeps smiling, so much so we named her smiley….lol. But with growing up and facing the real world, I notice she doesn’t smile all through all the time any longer. Few times she’s gotten home tired from work, and she’s frowning!

Believers are also like that you know. We are meant to walk through life with a smile on our faces because we are relaxed in God. But we tend to lose our smile sometimes, which is an overflow of the joy that should be in us – the joy of the Lord! So we go through a hard day – we frown. We get angry about something, we frown. We get upset - we frown. We are unhappy - we frown. We read someone’s comment – we frown. We get insulted – we frown. We have a need – we frown………and this goes on and on. Scientifically, it is proven that we use more muscles to frown than when we smile. So ideally it means the face is more relaxed when we smile. And if the face is more relaxed, then we tend to look younger, feel younger and maybe live longer? 
But on a more serious note, why should we smile? I mean it is allowed to frown once every often, isn’t it? After all, life can sometimes be tough, things can sometimes go wrong and God gave us the ability to frown too. Well, God gave you the ability to smile, didn't He? So why choose the negative when you can have the positive? I daresay if you have a good understanding of God’s love and let it sink in, joy will always fill your heart regardless of the situation. The presence of God and the actual knowledge of it fill your heart with such joy and peace that it does not fail to spill over and show!


Psalm 16:11 - You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
And when you are joyful, you laugh. And when you laugh, you leave a residue of that joy on your face – in form of a smile!

Look at these bible scriptures and ponder on them
1 Samuel 2:1 - And Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the Lord; My horn is exalted in the Lord. I SMILE at my enemies, Because I REJOICE in Your salvation.
Psalm 42:5 - Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God— soon I’ll be praising again. He puts a SMILE on my face. He’s my God
Go on, start off your day with the joy of the Lord bubbling in your heart and causing you to leave a smile ‘residue’ on your face. You look so much better when you smile and may God grant us the grace to smile always... cos it is a natural medicine. By Deby Okoh