The Secret Way

By Greg Laurie, Op-ed contributor Saturday, May 09, 2015

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength."
— Proverbs 17:22

I have a little game I play with my granddaughters. When we are out and about, I ask them the question, "Do you want to go the regular way or do you want to go the secret way?"

Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California and Harvest Orange County in Irvine, California, shares the Gospel with a sold-out crowd of 19,000 for Harvest America at the American Airlines Center and Victory Park in Dallas, Texas, Oct. 5, 2014. | (Photo: rever Hoehne for Harvest Ministries)

Of course, they excitedly squeal, "The secret way, Papa, the secret way!" And that is the way we go.

Oh, by the way, there really is no "secret way" to speak of. If we are in a car, it's simply an alternate route. Or if we are going into a restaurant, I may take them in a side door instead of the front.

The idea is, let's have fun when and where we can.

Life is hard enough without making it harder. Sometimes we have rough days, and sometimes life is hard—very hard. Especially for a person who has lost a loved one and is in the depths of grief.

I speak to many of these people every day because I am a fellow griever, and we always seem to find each other.

I have found that a little humor can really help. One person said, "Laughter is a temporary vacation from grief."

I like that. Or we could just call it "the secret way."

The Bible says "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength" (Proverbs 17:22 NLT).

So try to laugh today. Or instead of going the regular way to where you need to go, try to go "the secret way."

Copyright © 2015 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000 Used with Permission