Social Experiment

About a year ago I began conducting a social experiment. I walk around stores, the mall, or really anywhere the public is out and about and smile at everyone I see—even those pushy people at the kiosks.  If you’ve seen me, you’ve probably asked yourself who the crazy, smiley woman is as you quickly shooed your kids away from the disturbed lady.  Unfortunately, I think that’s what a lot of people think when we smile for seemingly no reason.  I have a purpose in my smile, however. I smile in order to see if you will smile back.  What I’ve found is that people from Gen X, Gen Y, and Baby Boomers all tend to give a quick smile back, if not the full blown smile they receive from me. Millennials and younger, however, usually ignore me, avoid eye contact all together, and walk quickly away.  Why is this? I believe it’s because this generation of young people has been raised in relative isolation in front of screens—computer screens, phone screens, and TV screens—and they aren’t quite sure to do with this smile they are suddenly confronted with from a real, live human being.

What they don’t know is that joy is contagious! Just saying the word fills you with an indescribable feeling. It bubbles up from some wellspring deep inside you and fills you with, well, Joy!   Habbakuk 3 begins with a retelling by the prophet of the terrible anger of God against his people.  God’s anger was aroused, and rightly so, because once again the Israelites had drifted away.  This is one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible, not because God gets angry, but because of what comes afterward.  Verses 17-19 read: “Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls—yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.  The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.”  Did you catch that? I will JOY in the God of my salvation! You see, it doesn’t matter how bad things get, because the one thing that matters is eternal and can’t be snatched away from me—my salvation. In the grand scheme of eternity, it doesn’t matter that I may not be able to pay all of the bills this month; it doesn’t matter that my job may not be the one I wanted; it doesn’t matter that I may still be single when all of my friends are married with children.  

The ONLY thing that really and truly matters is the JOY I have in Jesus Christ.  So that’s why I smile. I can’t help it!