Proverbs 17:22
"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones."

How a man views life makes all the difference in the world. His outlook can heal; or it can hinder. Regardless of a man’s position in life, attitude is the difference between great success or dismal failure.

The above proverb is perhaps one of the most quoted of Solomon’s. Its meaning, however, is as profound as the proverb is simple. Obviously, the application for the believer is that he must have a merry heart. But what is a merry heart? The word heart here refers to an entire attitude or outlook on life. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) comments: “In its abstract meanings, ‘heart’ became the richest biblical term for the totality of man’s inner or immaterial nature.” When juxtaposed with spirit, the word heart, in Proverbs 17:22, refers to one’s attitude. The beneficial heart is a merry one. Equating the word merry with the concept of joy, TWOT made this observation: “The Lord and His salvation are cited most frequently as the reason for joy. Indeed, the joy of the Lord is man’s strength (Nehemiah 8:10).” Thus, a merry heart is an attitude of joy. As medicine to an open wound, so is an attitude of joy to a difficult situation. By contrast, a negative attitude can sap the energy: “a broken spirit drieth the bones.”

The feeling of having dry bones can occur with dehydration. When I was in high school, our class took a trip to Carowinds, an amusement park not far from Charlotte, North Carolina. The temperature was above 90 soon after 10:00 that morning and was still quite high when we left that night. In the heat of the day, one of the popular rides broke down. There were easily one hundred people waiting in the circuitous line that led to the roller coaster. Everyone in the line was debating in his mind, “Do I leave and go ride something else, or do I stay and wait?” Leaving one’s place in line might mean that he would have to go through the long wait all over again, should the ride be quickly repaired. On the other hand, if he stayed in line and the ride were quickly repaired, then the wait would be rewarded. If others left the line to go elsewhere, the reward would be greater because of a shorter wait – maybe even the chance to ride twice in short succession. Of course, it might take a long time to repair the ride. In such a circumstance, waiting would mean a thankless immobility in sweltering heat. Thus, in the sweltering heat, the mob debated, their own body heat adding to the natural heat of the sun. Most in the crowd decided to stay in the line, as did I, and wait for the ride to be repaired.

It had been hours since I had taken anything to drink and now that I was confined in a hot place, moisture became important. I began to feel as if my bones were drying up and my strength was fast waning. I leaned on a metal rail for support and then, everything went black. The next thing I remember was sitting far away from the crowd with a couple of park employees hovering over me and asking me questions. I remember being weak until they gave me some water. In just a short time, my energy and strength had returned and I went hard the rest of the day, taking time to be sure I drank enough water. The “dry bones” that I felt is the same kind of feeling brought about by a broken spirit. A person who focuses on the negative will be a constant source of weakness to the entire group, just as lack of water weakens a body in the sun’s heat.

The Old Testament offers a classic illustration of both aspects of this proverb. To illustrate the broken spirit, God gives the story of twelve men. Only two of the men are household words today and that because of their faithfulness to God. The other ten, a significant majority, clearly demonstrated a broken spirit. The events of their espionage trip could have hardly been more amiable. Canaan was in harvest time and the land yielded its bounty to the twelve as they traversed it for forty days. Moses did not record one single mishap that one of the twelve faced the entire forty days that they were in Canaan. When they returned from spying out the land, they brought back a cluster of grapes so large that it had to be borne by two men on a pole. Doubtless, if attitude were dependent upon circumstances, these twelve would have exhibited the best of attitudes. Instead, the opposite was true. Ten of the twelve spies brought back an evil report. Moses, in Numbers 14:31-33, related evidence of their broken spirit: “But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” The effect of their broken spirit was exactly what Solomon stated in his proverb. The weakness of dry bones can hardly be missed: “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?” From that time, the children of Israel faced the judgment of God because of unbelief. Only when the last doubters died in the wilderness did God bring them to the brink of Canaan again.

Their march from Sinai to Kadesh-Barnea, though far from perfect, had been one of anticipation and victory. Like a healthy athlete, they had seemed to poised to gain the prize that God had given them, the land of Canaan. Instead, when the ten spies brought back their evil report with their broken spirit, the bones of the athlete dried up and there was no more any strength in the children of Israel. It all happened because of the bad attitude of the spies.

Nearly forty years later another set of spies again entered the land of Canaan. The latter expedition was as adventurous as the first had been uneventful. This time, not twelve but two spies were sent into the land, not to spy out the entire land, but simply to look at the city of Jericho. The expedition reads like a junior boy’s adventure book, with one exception: the events in the story are not fictitious. Had the two heroes been caught, they would have actually been killed. It was no motion picture where the director would cut action and the players in the drama could enjoy a cup of coffee together. This was war. Evidently, the mission was only hours old when it ran into trouble. While lodging in the home of a woman named Rahab (probably the only person who would house them, given the city’s emotional state), enemy soldiers arrived at the house. Rahab quickly hid the spies under the flax on the roof and then attempted to deceive the soldiers off the trail. The spies hid under the uncomfortable flax for what must have seemed like an eternity until finally the soldiers were gone. The adventure, however, was far from over. The gates of the city were now barred and it was evident that the spies were wanted men. Rahab accordingly let them down over the wall by a rope. No cozy rest for two Jewish spies that night. They had to flee to the mountains and wait three days until Jericho’s pursuit returned home empty. The mountains may have offered the spies uncomfortable nights as the temperature dropped and building a fire may have been dangerous. In any case, the pair made their way back after three days and returned safe to Joshua.

Once back, they told the details of their story, but God the Holy Spirit emphasizes something interesting in the narrative: “And they said unto Joshua, Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us” (Joshua 2:24). Of all the points of the expedition to emphasize, this point seems strikingly unlikely. The twelve who had gone in forty years earlier had every reason to bring back a good report, but these two certainly did not. They had not even been able to sleep the night in the city without being hunted down. Then, the time in the mountains might have been taken as the adverse hand of God. So many circumstances could have caused the spies to be negative – hiding under flax, being sought by the soldiers, escaping the city by a rope over the wall, hiding in the mountains, sneaking back to Joshua – but out of all that, the spies focused on the positive. The adversity that they had faced was the result of the Lord having given the land to Israel.

The choice of response to circumstances remains the same today. It is possible to have a negative attitude or a positive attitude about the same situation. One’s attitude comes from one’s focus. The first spies focused on the giants, though many circumstances that they encountered were positive. The second spies focused on the power of God, even though many circumstances that they encountered were negative. Focus, then, is the basis of joy and joy the root of a good attitude. God’s people ought to be the ones with the best attitudes. After all, the Christian’s God is in control and concerned with giving only the best to His children. Each child of God must determine in his life to keep his focus on his Savior and diligently maintain a merry heart. The alternative of a broken spirit and its disastrous consequences is more than any man would want to handle.