'Re-Joy' your Life

How do you find the joy you used to know in faith?  Good question, many answers. But here, let's talk about one of them, and to my thinking, the main one.

To start, the easy part: change your perspective on joy.  Bear with me. It isn't semantics...

First things first.  What joy is not.

Happiness is not the same thing as joy.  You can find fleeting happiness in lots of things, but it is shallow, swiftly moving --  like a bubbling spring. But joy is a much deeper well dug into the bedrock of what really matters to you.

When life has taken away the 'usual' sources of our happiness, we might feel that we have lost our faith. There is no joy left...

  By no means! Seasons of trial, pain, or illness, loneliness, or lack might all sap us of the emotions we long to experience again, but these things can never touch the deeper things of God.

So what is joy?

Both joy and peace go beyond the emotional, the passing.  They seem to be a state of being. You have heard one example used -- the joy of motherhood.

The joy of motherhood does not go away just because the baby is sick, dirty (again), demanding your attention, or growing up and talking back.  The trials are an inherent part of that calling. No one in their right mind expects no challenges here! The good and bad days come together.

So, a lack of problems does not make for joy.  Emotions change from day to day, but the relationship endures. Joy is in the relationship itself.

THAT is the kind of joy that God offers.  In HIM is a sustaining relationship with the Father through Christ. 

Then, Israel was suffering great loss.  God comforted them by bringing hope that their joy would return--Jerusalem. (It did, by the way!)

It is a matter of identity.  When we cause our Heavenly Father grief, He holds us, chastens if need be, nurses us back to health, and all the rest. And this, as we find ourselves on His knee, held close as to a mom with a toddler.

And in THIS, we know joy.  As we keep close to Him, there is joy even in pain, grief, lack of freedom, or any of the worst of life. 

HE is our joy.  Don't take my word for it! In His word, we know this to be true and take it by faith as we do all that He gives us. We see those who have gone before us with the same story. 

HE is our joy, so seeking Him and His love for us will re-joy our lives, even when the days bring less than we'd hoped for.

You can find this out too by typing in joy in biblegateway.com and studying the various types of joy in our God. See for yourself! Even the book of Job talks of it!

Joy prevails. Joy in HIM prevails!