Daily Delight
Sometimes, the hardest part of my day is simply having joy. Often, nothing is truly wrong and nothing is necessarily going terribly, but nonetheless my joy is lacking. More than occasionally, I begin to excuse myself from joy, feeling entitled to my moodiness. "I'm tired; I'm so busy," I tell myself. How can people expect me to smile and laugh all the time when I am just trying to survive through my week?
There is a difference between happiness and joy. A lot of us have heard that. But something I have recently learned about happiness is that it is not actually a feeling– it is an outcome. It is a result of our choices. Joy, on the other hand, is a disposition. Joy, for many of us, has to become a choice that we daily have to make in order to come to an end result of happiness. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope" (Romans 15:13, ESV). If joy is not coming naturally to you day-to-day, relax. Take a deep breath. Give yourself some grace and accept that you're human. Then, turn to the true source of joy. Romans tells us that God is a god of hope. He wants to fill us with joy, and not just some joy or enough joy to get us past Monday, but with ALL joy. Note that this scripture gives us the secret key to this: "by the power of the Holy Spirit." This week, when you just aren't feeling it and notice a bad mood coming on, turn this feeling into fuel for the Holy Spirit and prepare yourself to receive the joy of the Lord.
