CNYB

Celebrations—The best ones originate from ShangDi! 

“Be cheerful with joyous celebration in every season of life. Let your joy overflow! And let gentleness be seen in every relationship, for our Lord is ever near.” Paul, Philippians 4:4-5 (TPT)

Celebrations are wonderful, aren’t they? There is good food, music, interesting/funny conversations with friends and families and more! Some have cultural dances. There are other benefits too! Science shows that taking time to celebrate helps us work better too! A Chinese proverb says,

“Those who drink the water should never forget those who dug the well.” “喝水不忘挖井人” 

And celebrations help remind us of those in history who sacrificed for our rights, freedoms,  privileges and lives as well as the values of our history and heritage. Celebrations help revive us physically, emotionally and spiritually, and the best ones remind us of wonderful blessings and crucial truths about the God who loves us, has wise principles for us to live by and is the source of all the best things in life (James 1:17)! The Chinese New Year festival is a wonderful celebration that started 1000s of years ago, at a time when Chinese people believed in ShangDi, the supreme God above all humanity. But, it’s not just for cultural fun. It has at least 10 significant similarities to a biblical celebration called Passover (this is explained in the book linked below). In addition, many scholars and researchers believe that ShangDi who is the origin of many celebrations, customs and wise ethics that are a foundation of many successes is identical to the God of the Bible. History and science both show that the principles God gave through China and the Bible (and other cultures too) are the best ways to be happy, but also to overcome difficulties and grow in love, truth, justice, mercy, wisdom, science and every valuable area! Celebrations are not just fun, they are important for us to be healthy, better at work, revive our energy, help us thrive and even be sane! The NY Times reported on research that found that time off from work, like vacations (when many celebrations happen), are quite beneficial even for work!

“the accounting firm Ernst & Young did an internal study of its employees and found that for each additional 10 hours of vacation employees took, their year-end performance ratings from supervisors (on a scale of one to five) improved by 8 percent…”

Tony Schwarz, “Relax! You’ll Be More Productive” www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/opinion/sunday/relax-youll-be-more-productive.html Shawn Achor taught a class on happiness at Harvard that was the most popular class ever and says that happiness and being positive are much more important than most people realize and shares some simple ways to find more happiness and things to celebrate in every day of life.

“only 25% of job successes are predicted by IQ, 75 percent of job successes are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat…Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed. You’re 37% better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed…If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we’re able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.   We’ve found there are ways that you can train your brain to be able to become more positive. In just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in a row, we can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more successfully. We [get people] to write down three new things that they’re grateful for 21 days in a row, three new things each day. And at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive first. Journaling about one positive experience you’ve had over the past 24 hours allows your brain to relive it. Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters. We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we’ve been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand. And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their support network.  By doing these activities and by training your brain just like we train our bodies, what we’ve found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success, and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity, but a real revolution.” 

The happy secret to better work, https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work/ These are simple habits, but genius. Most of the principles Achor is teaching top corporations and CEOs are not only simple and easy to do, they are also very effective and can be done in a couple minutes a day.  Most of these principles are also identical to the principles God gave through ancient Chinese culture and in the Bible so that each of us could have a life with much happiness and much to celebrate. The ancient Chinese worshiped ShangDi, the emperor above, and thanked Him for the blessings of life. Many scholars and Christians have researched and believe that the true understanding of ShangDi is identical to the God of the Bible. God knew these principles about why celebrations and being positive are valuable long before any scientists did. This is why people who actually live by the principles of ShangDi/God are much happier in most studies and have higher levels of success too! The Bible is full of verses that say that God desires to bring joy to people.  Some examples of this are:

1) God loves to give joy to His people! 

“God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him.” Ecclesiastes 2:26

2) God has many principles to bring us joy and is always ready to restore us to His joy!

“Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had!” Lamentations 5:21

3) God instituted 7 major celebrations in the Bible, Passover, The Feast of Unleavened Bread, The First Fruits festival, Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles or Booths so people could enjoy celebrations, good food, great family/community memories and also discover more of the blessings and wisdom God has for us!  4) God wants to enable us to experience joy forever in a place where there will be no more suffering (Rev. 21:1-4).