The Journey Begins

I've been reading Pollyanna to my daughter at bedtime...we need a dose of optimism right now.

Just recently we came to the chapter where Pollyanna confronts the Pastor about his "Hell'N'Damnation" sermon and lets him in on her late father (who was also a minister)'s secret. She refers to them as the "glad texts" of the Bible and explains how after her mother died her father was very depressed. This depression was about to consume him when he became inspired to find Gods joy and His commands throughout the Bible to find happiness in HIM. According to Pollyanna, her father found over 800 texts that command us to rejoice.
This got me thinking.
Are there really over 800 texts that tell us to rejoice and be glad? 800 texts that encourage us to find our hope in HIM? We all know that God is sovereign and that the Bible is "good news" But how "good" is it?
For those of you who know me, I am typically a fairly optimistic, Pollyanna-ish person as it is...and I am no where near depression or throwing myself off a bridge, but even the most optimistic of optimists needs encouragement sometimes and so I decided to (with the limited concordance I have) see how close to 800 I could get.
Yesterday I looked up and copied all the verses pertaining to "benefits". I don''t know one person who would be upset to get benefits of any kind.
According to my nonextensive research, there were 4.

Romans 6:22
2 Corinthians 4:15
Psalm 103:2
John 4:38

I would encourage anyone to look these up. If you don't want to get your Bible out, or don't have one to find, www.biblegateway.com is a good site to use.

Today I looked up "bless" for a grand total of (6) "glad texts".
And the two from today were...
Genesis 12:2-3
Romans 12:14

Both days I have walked away from my quiet time feeling encouraged and refreshed and thought I would share with anyone interested. After all, God didn't write this stuff just for me! I hope whoever reads this is able to take away some encouragement from it, and if not, well...its good for me to get it out anyway.