I never thought of the Savior's words, "Be of good cheer," as a commandment. It always seemed like just a thing a person tells their friend when their friend is upset. It's not an order; it's just words of encouragement. I've never thought of it as something that we're supposed to do because God commanded it, but rather as something that God has asked us to do just because He wants us to be happy. That amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?
God gives us commandments because He wants us to be happy, and He knows that following His commandments is the best way to achieve happiness. Telling us, essentially, to "be happy," is right in line with the purpose of all of the other commandments. Yet, I think there's still a difference.
Most of the commandments come with a set of blessings and punishments. If you obey the commandment, you get blessings. If you break the commandment, you get punished (perhaps by the natural laws of the universe, in the same sense that getting your hand burned is the "punishment" for touching something very hot). Being of good cheer doesn't seem to fit this mold. There are no blessings attached to being happy besides, well, being happy. And the only downside of being miserable that I can think of is being miserable. The reason I hardly think of this as a commandment is that the only blessing or punishment that comes with being happy or not is that either you'll be happy or you won't. Keeping this commandment is its own reward, and breaking it is its own punishment.
But why should a commandment need an external set of barely-related punishments and rewards to be a proper commandment? Perhaps it's because I think of the commandments as a bunch of rules that God asks us to keep "because I said so" or because He'll bless or punish us depending on whether we listen or not. Since there's no punishment attached to not being of good cheer, it doesn't seem like a real commandment. But that's ridiculous. There are better reasons to keep commandments than because of blessings or punishments or because God said so, and you can bet that God has other reasons for giving us all those commandments besides giving Himself excuses to bless or punish us, or to just boss us around (though any excuse to bless His children is probably a good enough excuse for Him).
God's primary motivation is love. Because He loves us, He wants us to be happy. So He gives us a set of instructions that will lead us to happiness, and because our motivations are not always sufficient to get us to follow those instructions, He often bribes us with blessings and threatens us with punishments until we eventually do what He wants us to do, and find out that it has made us pretty happy.
With the commandment to be of good cheer, there are no blessings or punishments attached because this commandment really doesn't need them. It's almost a no-brainer. If you want to be happy, be happy. If you choose not to be happy, then you won't be happy. It's painfully simple, and I almost feel stupid for thinking that I have to explain it.
There is, however, one downside that is irremovable from breaking any commandment, even without any other punishments attached. The breaking of commandments is sin. God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Sin makes us unclean. No unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God. If being of good cheer is a commandment, then being of poor cheer could keep us out of heaven.
In a way, that doesn't sound fair. Hearing that, even though you've kept all the other commandments, you still can't enter heaven because you're miserable, is enough to make a person terribly upset! On the flip-side, hearing that all you need to do to finish qualifying for heaven is to be happy is enough to bring a smile to anyone's face.
There may be another reason we have to be of good cheer to qualify for heaven. I don't know if this is doctrinally true or not, but I get the feeling that the people in heaven will bump into one another on occasion. And, whether it's confirmed in doctrine or not, I know that people's attitudes are contagious. If there was a miserable person moping around in heaven, it'd affect the happiness of everyone else up there. Then again, if one person in heaven has a bad day (assuming that a person can have a bad day in heaven), being surrounded by cheerful, optimistic people might lift their spirits. Being happy can help other people be happy. And the more people are happy, the happier people will be. (And now I feel stupid again.)
So, to achieve the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum amount of people, God has asked that each of us at least make an attempt to be happy at least some of the time, in hopes that our happiness will help make others, or at least ourselves, more happy, and there will just be more happiness in general. I've heard it said that "happiness is the object and design of our existence." If that's true, then being of good cheer isn't just something you can do to cheer yourself up; It may be the meaning of life.
I may be taking this idea a little bit too far here, so let me tone it down a bit. At the very least, being of good cheer is an invitation to be happy, and who wouldn't want to do that? Even if it's not the purpose of life or an essential characteristic of those who may enter heaven, it's still worth doing, just for the short-term effects. So, be of good cheer. It may or may not be a vital commandment, but it's certainly a good idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment