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Let’s Get Serious about Joyful Occasions

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A Child's View of Thunderstorms

Let’s Get Serious about Joyful Occasions

—— Dr. James R. Kok

Life needs more celebration! Is that really such a profound statement? Doesn’t everyone appreciate a celebration?

Let me ask it more personally? Do you really like to celebrate your birthday? Can you openly enjoy a success you have had, without worrying that people will think you are proud? When someone congratulates you, do you just shrug it off with appropriate ‘modesty’?

Accomplishment without celebration, thanksgiving, and joyful noisemaking can dry the soul. True — hard work, industriousness, and single-minded productivity bless the world enormously (where would we be without them?), but when they lead to accomplishment, they should be celebrated.

Even the Creator stepped back and enjoyed the good world he had brought into existence.We must copy the patterns God shows us. One way is to clap and to dance with full-hearted thanksgiving in celebration of the events, people, and productions God has let us be a part of.

“Another birthday party,” I sighed. I was reading an inter-office memo inviting me to eat, drink, and be merry on behalf of one of my colleagues. My mind quickly scanned possible conflicts that would enable me to legitimately be absent. I looked for an excuse to go on with my work, which, of course, was more important.

Celebration is not a comfortable or familiar activity for me. It represents a gap in my response system—a gap I want to bridge. I am beginning to realize that God calls us to be celebrative people.

(continued)

Dr. James R. Kok has written a definitive resource detailing the key essentials in becoming a more caring person in his latest book, “The Miracle of Kindness” (available on Amazon.com, in either paperback or Kindle edition.) A handful of basic tools —wrapped in courage—are the secret to changing the world through intentional acts of kindness.

As the Koach Of Kare, Dr. Kok has been a pastor at the
Crystal Cathedral for the past 27 years and heads the Care Ministry department of the church. He is the author of six books and numerous articles, and he is the founder of the
Conference on Care and Kindness, held annually at the Crystal Cathedral.

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