Spreading Sunshine
Spreading Sunshine
When I was little I loved to pal around with my Uncle Eddie.
He was so much fun. Whenever we’d go camping with my aunt and uncle I’d stick to him like a little shadow. I guess it was because he was always smiling or joking or throwing us kids around—tumbling or wrestling with us.
As long as I can remember, he has hummed, whistled, or sung that old tune,
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.
Please don’t take my sunshine away.
I love that song—and he loved to sing it. Still does, as a matter of fact.
Uncle Eddie has mastered an art I sincerely wish more of us would practice. Simply spreading sunshine. Most people are starved for a smile or a kind word. What a privilege it is when we can give those who are without a reason for smiling our own laughter and joy.
Jesus did much the same thing. Yes, in many ways He was the “man of sorrows.” Yet there was something about Him … something that drew men, women, and children into His company. Peter, an eyewitness to the ministry of the Lord Jesus, tells us, “He went around doing good” (Acts 10:38). Even on the night He was betrayed, He led His men in a hymn of praise.
To the burdened-down men and women He encountered on His journeys, people without smiles, I can well imagine Him giving His own, backing up His command to love one another with a powerful example.
It’s sad and ironic that many of us who call ourselves by His name, those of us who possess the very key to life, tend to appoint ourselves as frowning, narrow-eyed judges over the attitudes and actions of others. Somehow we get the idea that we are to be the judge, rather than Christ. That it is our responsibility to convict, rather than the Holy Spirit’s. We start categorizing other Christians, judging their weaknesses and classifying them as “strong believers” or “backsliders.”
We get so picky. So hard. So inflexible. So humorless.
So ungodly.
Yet if we’d only allow the love of Christ to bubble up in our hearts and flow unrestricted through our lives, then we would gladden the strong believer and strengthen the weak one. We’d even be used to draw those outside of Christ into His life changing embrace.
To state it simply, we would be spreading sunshine. Not the shallow, plastic kind, but the genuine article … the Sonlight that brings hope, fresh courage, a reason to live, and—yes!—eternal salvation.
Think of Jesus, who went about doing good, even though the folks around Him were without a smile. Don’t get angry at the person who acts in ways that displease you. Give him the smile he lacks. Spread the sunshine of your Lord’s limitless love.
In doing so, you just might make your own day a little brighter than it was before.