The Discerning Effect Of Gladness

Gladness is a noun…it’s the name for the condition of being glad. Therefore, the word has a certain sense of being pure about it, like the purity of driven snow. The etymology of the word gladness is ‘smooth’ and ‘shining’. It actually made me think of what it must have been like in the early 1st century church when it was said that they “ate together with sincere and glad hearts.” (Acts 2:46).

In the Bible, there are 53 references to being glad or ‘gladness’. It can be defined as: 1. full of cheerfulness and brightness 2. having a happy or cheerful disposition by nature; 3. expressive of, marked by, or caused by joy and happiness 4. experiencing delight, pleasure or joy: made pleased; made satisfied, happy or grateful—oftentimes used with of: very willing.

The wisdom teacher Qoheleth in the Old Testament taught, “I commend to enjoy life, because nothing more is good for a person under the sun than to drink and eat and be glad.” (Ecclesiastes 8:15) I think oftentimes we do not truly appreciate the simple pleasures of food like we can, but whenever we are being invited to a dinner or lunch, there’s a true and genuine sense of looking forward to it for the most of us.

Now, that’s a sign of simple gladness. What a sudden flash of thunderous truth is this happening? The true gladness penetrates. I received an email recently from my church and I read with gladness the very gladness of a pastor to see all the great and wonderful ministry of God that surrounds him.

Well, that is what I read (between the lines actually) as he is lifting one person after another up to the whole e-congregation—the Spirit of God at work. Gladness has a certain infectious joy about it. It is full of love; it refuses to be swayed by anything but the best, although it could also view and handle the worst.

I recall an old spiritual quoting Isaiah “wear a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” No matter what the circumstances are, as long as the smile is there, there is life, pure and simple. Being glad is a simple feeling or emotion; just like joy. And it is in this sense of inherent joy, the one described by those in the early church which I think Paul was referring to when he prodded the followers of the Way to “Do all without arguing and complaining…become pure and blameless… and shine like the stars.” (Philippians 2:14-15).

There is possibly no other large collection of specialized writings so scattered with joy as this. We could either be made happy or make happy yet there is a more primary or more profound gladness of disposition. Life is priceless and essential. If gladness could get us even just halfway there why will we not automatically be more glad? Gladness has true and divinely anointed strength about it.

Being glad and able to enjoy simple happiness of life for whatever they are , are not trying so hard. This is the genuine secret of God’s grace; we let His love that never condemns enter into our awareness and we know the help of the Spirit which causes joy of disposition; happiness…that brings us peace and other virtues.