Happy In the Lord!

I am happy in the Lord, yesterday, today and tomorrow!

The first time I heard this was when I was seven or maybe eight years old. My Dad’s mother, Lola Spence, worked in her sister’s photography studio on Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. Mom and Dad went Christmas shopping in Cleveland and left me with Grandma at the studio. During the morning, after sharing many Bible stories with me, she said, “Bobby, let’s take a walk.” She took my hand and we left the studio and walked down Lorain Avenue. A man approached from the other direction and saw us and said, “good morning, Lola, and how are you on this beautiful day?” I looked up at Grandma and she had a great big smile on her face and she said, “Happy in the Lord.”

Over time I shared this experience with others, and was asked, “what do you think she meant by happy in the Lord?” The best way to answer that is to share what she wrote on June 29, 1950: “I am happy in the Lord, light as a feather, free as a bird, happy as a lark - today and everyday because He is in my heart to stay. I am fully surrendered to do His will instead of my will and everything is smooth and harmonious. The harmony, tranquillity, peace and joy that I now have is what I wanted all my life. It is heaven on earth.”

I believe that my Grandmother meant that to be happy in the Lord means that we live by and walk with the Spirit. As Paul wrote in Galatians 5:25-26; “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not come conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” As Christian business leaders the way we walk, talk and treat others must be like Jesus. Business leaders must be Servant Leaders. And, as a Servant Leader, according to Proverbs 3:27, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.”