Pharrell Williams sings the song, ‘Happy.’ While listening to this song, you cannot help but snap your fingers, dance, and smile, because it is a happy song. My favorite lyric of the song, is “Can’t let nothing bring me down.” In Psalm 118, David offers praises to God in spite of the fact that his enemies are trying to bring him down. He declares that he will put his trust in God, and reminds us that if the Lord is on our side, we should not fear. What can man do to us? He declared that even though the Lord had chastised him severely, he did not kill him. Then, David declares after reiterating his trust in God: “this is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it,” Psalm 118:24. The Psalm declares the truth: ‘can’t nothing bring us down!’

So many times, we find ourselves on a high, things are going well for us. We are feeling good, and then someone or something or some situation tries to bring us down. The reason this happens is because there are some people that do not like to see us happy, and we already know that the devil cannot stand it when we are feeling like ourselves—filled with joy and moving forward in spite of our circumstances. Let us tell certain people that we are happy, and they will try to bring us down with cutting/rolling of the eyes, a blank stare, shrinking of the nose, or turning up of the lips. The truth is misery loves company. Unfortunately, there are times that we bring ourselves down, but we can’t let ‘nothing bring us down.’

This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. No matter what others think or how evil spirits creep into our lives, we have to declare that nothing can bring us down. Sometimes, you have to be happy all by yourself. Stuff happens that has the potential to bring us down—low test scores, car breaks down, bad weather, road rage, hard-headed children, dropped cell phone call, a lost cell phone, an unexpected requirement to complete a task, a bad-hair day, getting on the scale, thinking one thing but it says another, bad customer service, somebody does not like you, no matter how nice you are to them, and other types of wrenches in our plan. But we cannot permit these things to kill our spirits and bring us down to the point that we cannot enjoy the good that is happening to us. We cannot allow them to alter our attitude. Instead of becoming/staying sad or angry, we have to respond optimistically, knowing that what has the potential to bring us down can create an opportunity to move us upward.

We also have to remember that God is not in the business of bringing us down. As the Psalm explains, God is in the business of bringing us up to our highest potential. If we trust in him, we realize the truth that people have no power or authority over us to bring us down. If God is for us, nothing has power over us. Can’t ‘nothing bring us down.’ Nothing has the power to put us in the dumps. We decide. This is how I’m feeling—here come bad news talking this and that, yeah. Well, give me all you got, and don’t hold it back, yeah. Well, I should probably warn you— I’ll be just fine, yeah. No offense to you, don’t waste your time. Here’s why—can’t nothing bring me down. My level’s too high. Bring me down? Can’t ‘nothing bring me down,’ I said. Clap along if you feel like that’s what you want to do. Can’t ‘nothing bring me down.’