There are days when we can feel like our joy has been kicked right out from under us. It’s completely normal even for a person of strong faith to experience seasons when joy feels depleted and shallow. Absent, even. If we’re honest, finding and keeping joy today feels harder than ever. If joy depends on our circumstances, and it doesn’t – it’s easy to come up empty.
So I mentor my mangled moments – to focus on what I know, but forgot . . .
True biblical joy is not a forced emotion to fake fine – it can’t be manufactured by a giggle and a joke. Took me a while to learn that one. It’s an inner stillness and steady confidence that God is present and good even when life is hard.
We may lose the feeling of joy, but never the source. Since it’s deeper than happiness, it’s still there in the well of our soul. We need to nurture and stir it up by rehearsing His promises.
These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. John 15:11
A heathen can rejoice when the good times roll but it’s how we as believers respond when they don’t. We have an enemy who is the master-mixer of lies and truth that “we deserve better – we need to be better” in order to experience happiness.
Happiness is random and feelings fail. Joy isn’t about happy and feelings.
King David knew the despair of feeling lost joy when he was in the wilderness and asked God to “restore to me the joy of your salvation. And grant me a willing spirit to sustain me” It’s about remembering with crazy gratitude while pressing in on a Father who loves the honesty of our heart’s cry.
Do you ever rehearse the joy when you first met Jesus?
I look at the wonder in my great-grands eyes. That’s what we must’ve looked like to Him. Pure joy. Their countenance reveals who they are — and ours should too.
If the gospel is the good news, and it is — we should look like we believe it.
The book of Galatians describes the fruit of joy as a gift from the Holy Spirit – so for a child of God, it’s already resident. It’s a choice to open, when the joy-stealers of anxiety, worry and discouragement try and cover it up.
It’s difficult to walk in joy when we dwell-daily in the constant news of crime, wars and wild weather. We must take steps to recover our joy by redirecting our perspective to shift our focus. When we purposefully position our mind and take captive, somehow peace will resurface. Take a break from the screen and the scroll, read a psalm, pause from the noise of life and walk in a field.
If joy feels lost or altered today, don’t believe the lie that it’s forever. God sees and understands what no one else does.
May the deep well of joy refresh your soul.
You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At Your right hand are pleasures ever more. Psalm 16:11
Verna
Leave a Reply