Emotions Are Not for Entertainment

One day when I was at CHESS/Chambers College, I was sitting in class and I noticed something about the people around me. Some of them had a small smile on their faces, others had indifference on their faces, and one had a very melancholy face. Looking at each one, I started to think, "Which one of these people would I like to spend time with if I just based my decision on their facial and body language?"

People can tell what type of mood you are in by your body, facial expression, and tone of voice. The saying, "Actions speak louder than words," is really true. When someone takes out his or her phone and looks at it when you are in the middle of a conversation with him or her, you probably don’t get the feeling that he or she really and truly cares about what you are saying to him or her. Even if he or she says, "Keep talking; I am listening," you don’t really believe it. This is just one picture I can paint for you.

If you know someone to the point that you call him or her a friend, I hope that you can read his or her body language. Just the other day I was with a friend and I knew that something I asked made him a little uncomfortable just by the way he reacted to my question. The way he looked at the ground said he was thinking, "Should I just go or should I consider what she is saying?" I knew that because he did not give a quick, sure answer like he would have if he was sure.

There are a lot of times with people that I don’t really know, that I can still tell what type of mood they are in. It is not hard for people to look at you and see if you are in a good mood or a bad one. I got to go to my very first fair a few years ago and I looked at a friend of mine and he said, "You are really happy that you got to come, aren’t you?" I asked how he knew that. "By your face," he said. I did not have to say anything; he just knew that I was really happy to go to my very first fair. But this can go the other way too. There have been many times that my friend Tessa can just tell when I am in a bad mood by the way I act; I do not have to say anything.

You must be thinking, "What is she getting at?" Well, I will tell you. We as humans have a way of wearing our emotions on our sleeves. I had never really noticed how much we do it and what it does to the people around us until I met someone that did it all the time, and more often than not, this person was not very happy and made sure that everyone around knew it. Looking at this person and how this person’s lack of joy just pulled everyone down, made me start to think about how much I wear my emotions on my sleeve for everyone to see, whether they wanted to or not.

I have a friend in nursing school and this past week she learned about how people’s friends or lack of friends affects them. One way that stood out to her and to me was that people that have friends that are always depressed or sad make their close friends prone to those types of emotions too.

What good does it do to show your emotions to the world? Looking at this question, the only answer I could come up with was that we like sympathy and somehow we believe that by displaying our bad moods we will get it. We want someone to ask us what is wrong so that we can snap his or her head off or pour our heart and feelings into his or her lap whether he or she truly wanted us to do that or not. Let me tell you something; not everyone that asks you how you are really means it. They are just saying it as a nice social convention because that is the way we greet people in our culture. Hopefully, all of you do have those good friends out there and you have confidence that when they ask you how you are, they really and truly want to hear what is going on in your life. But back to the point at hand. If I am in a social situation where I do not know a lot of people and I have to go out of my way to get to know someone, I am not going to go out of my way to talk to someone that looks like their best friend just died. I will go to the person that is laughing and looks very jolly.

The point that I really want to make is this; you want people to be able to see the joy of the Lord coming out of you. You do not want to turn off that one stranger that you could have witnessed to just because you had a scowl on your face. When we put on a sad face, we are often times giving in to our flesh and we are allowing ourselves to be consumed by ourselves. But when we make the choice to be happy, we are putting aside our desire to wallow in our problems and we are then investing in other people’s lives instead of forcing them to invest in us. I have seen that nothing is better then that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot...Ecclesiastes 3:22

Yes, our problems can be very great, and yes, we will have times to tell them to the people around us, but why not try to be the joy-giver instead of the taker? I know that I am always ready to receive, but I am not always ready to give. I do not want to be the old lady in the nursing home with the trouble worn face; I want a face that looks like there is a smile just waiting to burst forth. Being joyful is a choice that each of us get to make each and every day. Being a grump and making sure that people know you are unhappy is simply giving into the flesh and giving into sin.

"Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." Nehemiah 8:10


Project: to be happy and joyful whenever I am around people. I want people to look at me and not be able to help but smile! I want to beam with the joy of the Lord. This is a lot easier said than done, but please join me.

Follow up: I hope last month’s project went well for all of you. I must admit that I did not spend ten minutes every single day; I did miss two or three, but life goes on and I am trying harder.