Joyfulness is our prayer for the day! Joy is great delight caused by God. Our Father God provides exceptionally good and satisfying pleasure or delight regardless of our situation. Can you say that you truly have JOY down in your heart? Joy is not the same as happiness; which is based on our emotions and changes with our feelings and situations. Happiness is affected by the the world around us. Joy is within, from us abiding in Christ alone. Too often the worries of this world can turn our smiles upside down into frowns. We let today's stresses rob us of our joy. My 17 year old told me last night how life was so much easier as a child...he is still a kid in my eyes! Anyway, when he was young, the stress of the day all went away after a good night's sleep - the problems from the day before vanished. He said now, we just get a slight reprieve from them once we manage to fall asleep, then they are all still there the next morning. This makes my heart hurt that we can't take away the stresses that our children face, but we can model how to be Godly adults and deal with the stress of life. We will always have job/school demands, busy (or over-busy) schedules, chores, bills, deadlines, the list can go on...however we do NOT have to let these steal our JOY! Teach them while you have them at home how to manage stress and not let the weight of this world rob them of their joyfulness. Pray Satan will not steal their joy by filling your child's mind with self-doubt, fear, anxiety, the need to fit in, or any other negativity. Pray they will learn true JOY comes from the LORD and is ever-present regardless of situations. Remind them of what 2 Samuel 22:2-4 says - the Lord is our rock, fortress, and deliverer; where we take refuge - we have a our Savior, worthy to be praised! If He can deliver us and provide us refuge and salvation that gives us enough reason to have JOY! Even with trials we can still have JOY! Look at Paul and Silas...is our joy contagious? Pray it will be! Look at Acts 16:25-34 in verse 34 the jailers entire household rejoiced and believed after Paul and Silas prayed, worshiped, and witnessed. Wow, what an example for how we should joyfully live!
Pray that your family's faith will be seen as genuine and joyful; that it will portray the great love God has for us. Let our lives reflect His love---He sent His one and only Son to die for us so that we could have a relationship with Him and be forgiven for our sins...this should let our JOY always SHINE no matter what is happening around us!
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:4-7
Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his salvation. Psalm 35:9
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| Joy in Action |
"Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."
Psalm 30:5b
Josh Wilson sings it best in "Before the Morning": “My friend, you know how this all ends and you know where you're going, you just don't know how you get there so just say a prayer and hold on, cause there's good who love God, life is not a snapshot, it might take a little time, but you'll see the bigger picture. Would dare you, would you dare, to believe, that you still have a reason to sing, 'cause the pain you've been feeling, can't compare to the joy that's coming. So hold on, you got to wait for the light, press on, just fight the good fight because the pain you've been feeling, it's just the dark before the morning."
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