“A Happy Little Zing in My Brain”
DTEB, “A Happy Little Zing in My Brain”
“. . . the joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)
“the fruit of the Spirit is . . . joy . . . .” (Galatians 5:22)
“9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:9-11, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, just before his arrest and execution.)
Concerning a tiny habit that he was trying to refine, B.J. Fogg says, “When I did it the first time, I got a happy little zing in my brain that told me that I had hit the right spot.”[1]
We need to pay attention to those happy little zings. They may be a sip—or at least the scent—of a heady wine called the joy of the LORD.
Both the Old and New Testaments speak of this joy. This is a secret that is too little known about faith in God. I don’t know the secret well myself, but I am happy to blab about it anyway. The secret is this: There is a joy that comes from trusting and obeying the LORD. There is a joy that comes from knowing the God loves me just as I am. And believe you me, God knows me just as I am! And it isn’t always pretty. But God goes right on loving anyway.
As I live in God’s love and as I love God and people in response to God’s love for me, I feel those happy little zings in my brain. Being loved and loving is not always easy. The zings come only when I actually do something. And the truth is that I am sometimes incredibly lazy—even when things are easy. And, of course, doing the next right thing is not always the easiest thing to do. In fact, sometimes it is incredibly hard.
But then, there are those brain-zings. And I do like those!
I wish for you a zingy day!
[1] B.J. Fogg, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2020).
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