How To Pray When You’re Happy — Didn’t See This One Coming
These bulletins began as therapy — the overflow of a heart working through its wounds — which raises a question nobody warns you about: what happens when the patient starts to heal? The answer is David’s, from the safe side of Psalm 18: turn the writing into praise, turn the happiness into intercession for a broken world, and refuse to believe the joy is fragile just because the road ahead is hard. Prayers of joy are not less faithful than prayers of battle — they are the same faith with the sun out. The redeemed have a whole vocabulary for being glad in the Lord, and this is the day to use it.
If you are one of the precious few who has been faithfully reading these redemption bulletins then it comes to no secret to you that it has served different purposes but a great deal of the composition of the mojo that spawned them daily was that it has been working as a kind of therapy.
So what happens when the patient is healed? When he feels the love of the Lord? God forbid that the answer to that comes in the form of some calamity to struggle through. Although I know our adversary has tried recently. I woke up in the middle of the night with a blood sugar of 38 a bit over a week ago. Almost set fire to the house yesterday morning. Yet the Lord has stepped in and turned it into yet another reason to be grateful, happy and even more certain that the feeling in my gut is His love not the abdominal misfires that come from being 62. Sorry my humor will out. In truth though how does one write faithfully when the writing was spawned by the residue of self loathing (which is only the internalizing of the loathing from others) and the crispy burnt up caked on remnants of hope which are the most unkillable thing in us?
Hey look, I am still very much alone. I only have me, my mom and my cats. But my cats are better cats than I had a year ago. My guitar playing still needs improvement but leaving the guitar alone for a few months gave me a fresh approach so even that has improved. I always believed I was in the Lord’s favor because there was no good reason why I would still be here after death had tried so many times to take me out but failed miserably in the attempt. It is just that, as I mentioned earlier in another bulletin, the overwhelming feeling is like David in Psalm 18 now in a safe place and reflecting; or Benjamin and Elaine at the end of The Graduate, victoriously united and now reflecting but knowing the road won’t be easy but still feeling the glow; or even God resting on the 7th day and seeing all the good that He had created but in my case I see all the good that He has instilled in me.
The answers seem to be in:
1 David wrote many a Psalm in praise glorifying the Lord so I can write some psalms of praise and glorification magnifying the Lord.
2 Pray for a broken world and all the fallen. That seems to be essential now. Spread the love of the Lord to all those who are still engulfed.
And all the while knowing that I am coming from a very different place in this new life the Lord has gifted me with in his endless grace and mercy and things will not be the same.
I pray you stay with me.
Classic Commentaries Corner
Charles Spurgeon, who knew both the pit and the palace, insisted that happiness is not measured in possessions but in reception: “It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” That is the secret of the healed patient — the enjoyment was always the gift, never the accumulation. The man who can thank God for better cats and a fresher approach to the guitar has learned Spurgeon’s arithmetic: gratitude multiplies what it counts.
Matthew Henry, commenting on Psalm 30 — the psalm of mourning turned to dancing — gives the recovered believer his standing rule: “Whatever we have the comfort of, God must have the glory of.” The psalmist healed of his sickness vowed that his glory would sing praise and not be silent; Henry says the vow binds us too. Comfort received without praise rendered is a loan defaulted.
Augustine, who prayed his way out of a whirlwind of restlessness, tells us what the whole recovered life becomes: “A Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.” Not just the tongue — the schedule, the writing desk, the guitar, the morning. When the therapy ends, the alleluia does not; it simply moves from petition to praise.
C.S. Lewis, in his Reflections on the Psalms, answers this bulletin’s title question in a single line: “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” Praying when you’re happy does not interrupt the joy — it finishes it. Praise is joy taking its full form.
G.K. Chesterton, the apostle of the ordinary morning, defined the whole discipline: “Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” A man who survived death’s many attempts without one good reason why is precisely the man equipped for that wonder — he knows what he has might never have been. Thanks, he maintained, are the highest form of thought; the healed patient does not stop thinking, he starts thanking.
Corroborating Scripture & Christological Connections
Psalm 18:19 — “He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.” David’s safe-place reflection, the very image: rescued, settled, looking back — and crediting the Rescuer.
Psalm 30:11-12 — “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing… that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.” The healed man’s vow: the therapy produced testimony, and testimony must sing.
Deuteronomy 8:10-11 — “When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God… take care lest you forget.” The Bible’s warning label on happiness: fullness is where amnesia begins; blessing is the antidote.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 — “Though the fig tree should not blossom… yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” Joy anchored in God survives even the field going empty again — the gladness is not hostage to circumstances.
Luke 10:21 — “In that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.'” The Son’s own happy prayer: rejoicing and thanksgiving in one breath. Praying when glad is not a lesser devotion — it is the Master’s own practice.
John 15:11 — “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Christ’s stated purpose for instruction is fullness of joy — happiness in Him is not a detour from the mission; it is the mission’s flavor.
Luke 15:23-24 — “Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us eat and celebrate… they began to celebrate.” The father of the prodigal throws a party; heaven’s native language at a recovery is music and dancing.
Essential Takeaways
- Prayers of Joy Are Commanded: “Rejoice always” is as much a standing order as any battle instruction — the happy saint is not off duty, he is on a new one.
- Write the Praise Psalm: As David reflected from the safe place, write from the glow — psalms of praise and glorification magnifying the Lord.
- Intercession Completes Joy: Pray for the broken world and all the fallen while you are glad; joy that does not share curdles.
- Guard Against Forgetting: Deuteronomy 8 warns that fullness is where forgetting begins — gratitude is the guard, and thanksgiving the discipline.
- Stay With Him: Things will not be the same — the new place the Lord has given needs new psalms, and the readers who crossed the Red Sea with you are praying you keep writing.
Prayer For Whomsoevers
Thank you Lord. Now that you have taken me to a better representation of the Promised Land in my heart than I had known before – Thy kingdom came – please continue to guide me so that in my writings I may be inspired to write something that helps others cross the Red Sea past the dark night of the soul and into basking in your brilliance so that thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven. Let it be so and we say, in the presence of Jesus, Amen.
