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Joy is a Choice

Joy is a Choice

By Charles R. Swindoll


 
I was a child of the '30s and of the '40s. I remember when I first said that to our children as they were old enough to understand. They stared disbelieving at me across the table and one asked, “Daddy, did they have ketchup when you were a little boy?” “Yes,” I was happy to tell them, “they also had the wheel and electricity and other advanced technology.”

But what they didn't have was television. No television.

And if you are of my vintage, you remember that what you did for pastime was listen to some of the great radio dramas and comedy shows of the '30s and the '40s. Shows like “The Green Hornet” and “The Lone Ranger” and “Gang Busters” and “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy” and “Lum and Abner” and “Amos and Andy” and “Fibber McGee and Molly” and “Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.” But if we were really good and if we got our homework done, we would be allowed to sit up on Friday night and listen to “Inner Sanctum,” which got us so scared we couldn't go to sleep till midnight.

But my favourite of all the radio shows was, and I don't know why, but it was one I always listened to. It was called “Mr. District Attorney.” In fact, the announcer, every time he introduced the show, used the same lines. And…I memorized those lines. He talked about “Mr. District Attorney, the champion of justice, the advocate of the people, the defender of our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And I would get up and I would say those words as the announcer would say them.

Now that I've grown up, I have discovered that those lines, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” are not just words that appeared on an old radio show, but they come directly from one of our greatest of all documents, our Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.

And the full paragraph reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Well now, those may be our rights, and we may, indeed we are, willing to die for those rights. But now that I'm a man and have had time to think about those last three words, I question that happiness comes as a result of a pursuit.

When was the last time you really found joy outside yourself? What is there that we can pursue that will bring the kind of satisfaction and joy of which the Declaration speaks? I know of nothing. Nothing with a price tag brings lasting joy. No possession. No choice of friend or mate.

Joy is a choice. It's the result of a decision that one makes to be happy. You see, I think if there is any pursuit in it, it's an internal pursuit. It is an inner journey that leads one to joy regardless of external circumstances.


Charles R. Swindoll, adapted from “What a Way to Live!” in the Laugh Again series.