Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, July 25, 2025
A few days back on a neighborhood walk I spotted this snazzy red car, whose color seemed to match the two exhortations on its rear window. Once in awhile on rear windshields you see two messages, and they’re different enough so as to imply that the left one refers to the driver while the other one to the passenger.
But these labels are fairly equivalent. Both urge a positive outlook on life. “Happy,” according to an online dictionary, means “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment,” while “joyful” heightens things by adding a couple of words: “feeling, expressing, or causing great pleasure and happiness.” In a nutshell, happiness seems a more continuous emotion, while joy seems more spasmodic.
Okay, neighborhood red-car owners, whoever you are. Your decals have given us our marching orders. So how do we achieve these desirable emotions? Here are some Bible suggestions: