“A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones” (PV 17:22)
“And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me” (Gen 21:6)

As a pastor, I often meet sad ‘dry bones’ Christians. Their sadness is like a virus. If I am not filled with the Holy Spirit of peace and joy, their faces and their words will make me sad too. But joy is my strength and my shield. A born again child of God is commanded to ‘rejoice always’! It is true that life in this world is difficult and there are many reasons to be sad. (I live in Nigeria since 1980. I worked as a medical doctor here for about 20 years. In all my practice I did not encounter anyone who desired to commit suicide. But now, I hear now stories of people who are so depressed that they chose to terminate their lives. How sad… This is the devil at work).

If you are not saved, please give your life to Christ! This will be the best decision you can ever make! If you are born again, then have faith and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you! The first time the Holy Spirit fills your heart, it is the greatest experience. Nothing compares with it! You feel life entering your spiritual veins. You feel wisdom entering your tired and confused mind. Hope will enter and you can see the wonderful plans God has for you, you can see your bright future. Peace will come in and you feel a sense of good rest in your soul. Faith will ignite like dynamite and it will destroy all the gates of hell at once! You feel alive!!! You start to sing a new song unto the Lord!

But the greatest of all gifts is joy! I mean heavenly joy! It is the joy of Jesus! He died on the cross to save your soul and to fill you with His own joy! This joy destroys the weakness of the body and mind. Suddenly you feel strong! It is like rivers of laughter overpowering you. Once you start this holy laughter, you can’t stop it easily. It is like the Holy Ghost tickles your feet. You laugh like a baby. Your face will be wet with tears of joy. The only thing you can say is ‘Jesus… Jesus…’ You forget your name and your address. This joy is ‘good medicine’. It cures any sickness like an injection of fire in the bones. God is not the author of confusion. If He gives you the gift of laughter, it means that something good is going to happen. Fear not! Rejoice! And I say again, rejoice! Like Sarah, you will laugh supernaturally and your joy shall spread to many people.

Finally, this is my question: if you are a child of God, when last you really laughed and laughed! As we say in Nigeria, when last you laughed ‘bele-full’? When last you laughed ‘well – well’? The devil is a liar! The devil has stolen your joy! Take it back and swallow that ‘good medicine’! I know that if you are proudly addicted to sophisticated depression you will hate this letter. You imagine that your sadness is better than my laughter. I cannot change your mind. But I can pray for you that you may simply ask God for joy so that you can receive joy! Your breakthrough, your healing, your deliverance is just a prayer away… Trust God for a new (happier) beginning! What do you lose if you believe?