Operation Positivity
Acts 13:50-52 –
‘Then the Jews stirred up the influential religious women and the leaders of the city, and they incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas and ran them out of town. So they shook the dust from their feet as a sign of rejection and went to the town of Iconium.
And the believers were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.’
A few years ago I worked at M&S over Christmas. It was chaos. The shifts were long and stressful. The people I worked with were great but wow! did they like to moan. So I decided, more because I thought it would wind them up than anything else, that I would be super positive and super happy, and embark on Operation Positivity. I challenged myself to not moan once, to challenge everything they moaned about and to put a positive spin on everything.
After a while I think it really started to get on people’s nerves. The people I worked with really didn’t like how often I’d say ‘on the bright side’ or ‘well the good news is’. They didn’t like my positivity, and to be honest, looking back it was definitely very very annoying. So I’m not recommending Operation Positivity, but as we see in today’s passage people do take notice.
As we look today at Acts 13 the Early Church have had a rough ride. They’ve been imprisoned, they’ve been beaten, they’ve fallen out, and they’ve even been killed. And yet despite all of that, we read that ‘the believers were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit’.
The early church became known as people who were full of joy. How would it look for us as Gas Street Church to be known as people who were full of joy?
Let’s not forget that this is being full of joy, not happiness. Being happy all the time can actually become pretty annoying and alienating (I learnt that the hard way with Operation Positivity!)
But being full of joy is different.
What difference would being full of joy make to our places of work, our families and our friendships? How would it change our daily life?
Prayer – Holy Spirit, come now and fill me with you and your joy, just like you did with the early church. Help me to be full of joy in all I do and say today, and to bring joy to everyone I meet.