Don’t Worry Be Happy

Bobby McFerrin was one of those one hit wonders. He released Don’t Worry Be Happy in 1988. It was the first acapella song to hit number one. It’s lyrics were simple. It’s tune and Bobby’s voice was Caribbean. It made you think of a tropical island free of care and worry. It struck a chord with the public because we all really don’t want to worry. We want to be happy. We’re just not very good at it. In America, the luxury that surrounds us breeds distraction and worry. Intellectually, the Christian knows that the answer is to be careful about only one thing, our relationship with the Lord. But we care about so much more. I have been monitoring Amana Prayer Partners since May of 2008. I have copies of hundreds of prayer requests. Maybe one day I’ll write a book. I don’t recall a single prayer request focused on a care about one’s relationship with Christ. We pray about illness, about job security, about the salvation of others. We pray against bad weather or “evil” politicians. It is a good and right thing to bring such petitions to our Father and we have seen miracles in His answers. But the nature of our requests does say something about our focus.
In the “confessions’ department, I saw a movie last night which I can’t recommend because of violence and language, Book of Eli. Eli (Denzel Washington) has been on a journey for 30 years, walking west across America after a cataclysmic war that turned the earth into a total wasteland. The world has become a lawless civilization where people must kill or be killed. After the war and the “Big Flash”, Eli was guided by a God to the last remaining copy of the Bible and given the task of protecting the book and taking it to its final destination. Eli guards the book with his life, because he knows that the book is the only hope that humanity has for its future. The movie conveys a powerful message that we take the important things for granted and get so hung up on the trivia.
We need to cling to our God and His Word.
Don’t Worry. Be Happy. It’s possible. We don’t need a tropical island or a Jamaican dialect. We need to cling to what’s really important and shrug off everything else.
Happiness and Blessings.
Nick