ODB: That Famous Smile
November 4, 2017
READ: Psalm 28:6–9
The prospect of the righteous is joy. Proverbs 10:28
After my wife and I had the privilege of visiting the Louvre in Paris, I called our eleven-year-old granddaughter Addie on the phone. When I mentioned seeing da Vinci’s famous painting Mona Lisa, Addie asked, “Is she smiling?”
Isn’t that the big question surrounding this painting? More than 600 years after Leonardo captured this subject in oil, we still don’t know if the lady was smiling or not. Though enraptured by the painting’s beauty, we are unsure about Mona Lisa’s demeanor.
The “smile” is part of the intrigue of the painting. But how important is this anyway? Is smiling something the Bible mentions? In reality, the word appears less than five times in Scripture, and never as something we are told to do. However, the Bible does suggest for us an attitude that leads to smiles—and that is the word joy. Nearly 250 times we read about joy: “My heart leaps for joy,” David says as he thinks about the Lord (Ps. 28:7). We are to “sing joyfully to the
Clearly, the joy God provides through everything He has done for us can bring a smile to our face.
— Dave Branon
You are a good Father, dear God, and You do make us smile. You provide joy that is beyond what anything the world can offer. Help us show that joy to others by our countenance.
Hope in the heart puts a smile on the face.
Source: Our Daily Bread
