“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy….” (Galatians 5:22)
“Now, look me in the eye and give me a smile. I want to see your teeth.”
That’s my typical request of whoever is sitting before me for a quick sketch. If they hesitate, I explain that everyone looks better with a smile on their face, that a smile lifts the sagging face, changes the shape of the jawline, and adds a gleam to the eye.
“I don’t smile.”
Usually, the one saying this is an insecure teenager who has been warned off smiling by the mirror, an unkind friend, or a critic. That’s one thing that pulls me onto middle and high school campuses, to do my program and try to get across to them that “there is not a person on the earth who does not look better with a smile on their face, including you.”
One man told me, “My grandmother told me when I was fifteen that I did not have a nice smile. I went twenty years without smiling.”
I said, “What a mean old lady.”
We can understand teenagers having esteem problems that often make them withdraw and want to hide.
But a pastor?
More than once, I have been drawing at denominational gatherings where most of the subjects are pastors. And I confess to being knocked speechless by those who say, “I don’t smile.”
If they have time and are not rushed, I’ll speak to that.
I say to them….
1) “You are a pastor and you don’t smile?”
The very idea.
Why would a pastor of a church, a God-called shepherd of a flock of the Lord’s people, not turn his best face to the world and radiate the love of the Lord? What happened to his smile?
Usually, he mumbles some kind of an explanation: “I’m just not a smiler.” “I feel fine and I love people, but I just don’t smile.” “I’m smiling on the inside.”
I am well aware…
–that pastors are not immune to self-esteem problems. They are normal.
–that some pastors have been heavily influenced by critics (or misguided friends) who told them they should remain grave and humorless.
–and, that some pastors simply have poor mental health. This is a matter of serious concern. If anyone in the church should have great mental health–sound judgment, proper self-esteem, etc.–it’s the shepherd, the role model for the flock.
2) “Everyone looks better when they smile. Even you.”
When presenting my program on self-esteem to schools, in order to make this point, I ask the students to study my face when I’m looking solemn. “And, now watch what happens,” I tell them, as I begin to smile.
My face lifts upward, my cheeks fill out, and my eyes gleam.
The transformation is rather remarkable. And that’s true for every one of us. You too, pastor.
I have sketched perhaps a hundred thousand people in my long life. But to date, I have drawn no one whose appearance is not improved when they smile.
And who among us does not want to improve his appearance?
3) “You can make yourself smile. Try it.”
A number of years ago when the church I pastored telecast their Sunday services on live television, I would do a short intro to the service from the foyer, greeting the audience and inviting them to stay with us. Once, during a playback, I was stunned to see how solemn and even morose my face looked. In my mind, I was smiling. But the camera does not lie. And I made a discovery that day: I had to consciously make an effort to put a smile on my face.
Any of us can do that.
Why should we? For a hundred reasons, chief among them being that we are representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ who promised that we might have life and have it abundantly, that the joy of the Lord would be our strength, and that the peace of Heaven would guard our hearts in Christ Jesus!
Bob Anderson, retired pastor, told our seminary family one day in chapel, “We know Jesus was a happy person because children loved to be around him, and children do not like to be around unhappy people.”
That’s enough to cause any pastor to wear a smile!
4) “Now, ask the Lord to put a permanent and genuine smile on your face. Ask Him again and again, and begin believing Him.”
In one of the Psalms, David calls the Lord “the Helper of my countenance.”
We might go so far as to say the Lord is the best beauty treatment there is!
I have seen a beauty makeover right before my eyes as a burdened, troubled person knelt with me and prayed to give her heart to Christ. When she rose to her feet, she was beaming. The burden was gone, the guilt was erased, and in their place light was emanating. The person was absolutely radiant.
I love to quote the fellow who was asked if he thought Jesus ever laughed. “I don’t know whether He laughed or not, my friend. But He sure fixed me up so I could!”
As He did you. And, as you know, it’s impossible to laugh without smiling.
Sometimes, when I’m drawing kids and ask them to smile so I can get them looking their best, they (or a bystander) will say, “It’s a fake smile.” I reply that that’s all right, that I’m only a cartoonist and can’t tell the difference.
There is a difference however. The difference in the space between point 3 and 4. In point 3, you are making yourself smile. You can force one, and I do recommend that for starters. But the ideal is for the Lord to put His joy in your heart, His light in your eyes, and His smile on your face. And that is the real thing!
Now, the next time I see you, I hope to see a genuine, heart-felt smile radiating back at me. If so, whether I say it or not, what I’ll be thinking is, “How beautiful you look!”
Really.