You overwhelm me. My heart is saddened by your stories of hardships, and at the same time, it rejoices to know that God is using me, my words, and my book to bring you peace in the midst of fearful times. Thank you for sharing your stories with me. More so thank you for allowing the Lover of your soul to comfort, encourage, and strengthen your faith.
I’ve found on our journey in life, we run into dead-ends and detours that can not only rob us of our peace but our joy. The reason most of us lose our joy in hard times is because we are looking for it in all the wrong places. For example: Have you ever lost your car keys and tore through your entire house looking everywhere for them? I think we all have. Finally, you look in your purse, and there they are! The only reason you couldn’t find them the first place you looked is because you were looking in the wrong place.
Often times we look for joy in the wrong places…in what makes us happy, in good health or basically when things are going our way.
Joy is not the absence of problems. Joy is the presence and the recognition of Christ and His power in the midst of those problems.
Joy is essential in life.
The kind of joy I’m speaking of isn’t something we fake or something we experience when things are going our way. It’s better than that. It’s Jesus’ joy. John 17:13 says, I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.”
When we have a full measure of joy, we can do what Phil 4:4 commands us to do, “Rejoice in the lord always. Again, I say rejoice.”
That doesn’t mean we never experience sadness or grief. What it does mean is at some point, joy is going to break through our sorrow. That happens when we look at things from God’s perspective instead of ours. It happens when we measure the good that he brings out through our circumstances.
Right now you might be in a bad place. Recall those times when God brought good out of a bad situation. Doing so will infuse you with hope while you wait for the good to come out of the present trial. And…all of the sudden joy will break through the sorrow.
sagreen125 says
thanks for the post. this is a hard time for me. and after reading your post I could say thank you Lord, I may not feel happy, happy, but I have a roof over my head, health for me and my family. my husband goes to church, and my husband has a job.
Cindy says
As always, your words spoke to my heart. I hope to read your book someday but for now your blog is a wonderful reminder to fear not and to seek my joy and peace in the Lord rather than the things of earth.