For the past 3 months, the Joy of the Lord has been on my heart. While I haven’t been unhappy
or depressed, I maybe haven’t been the woman that God created me to be. I have
been anxious about the future, worry about finding a career and about when
Michael and I will start a family. Finances, stress levels, getting enough
sleep, and lining up work and family have been whirling around in my head. I
have let these things create in me a spirit of anxiousness.Michael, on the other hand, is the best
about “living in the moment” and appreciating the little things in life. I am the worst at it. I get so focused on goals that I stop
having fun reaching goals. While being serious, focused, and goal-driven might
make me a good employee, there is more to life than checking things off a list.
It’s one of those things that I know in my head but have a hard time acting out
in my life.
A couple of weeks ago, the Scripture “The joy of the Lord
will be your strength,” (Nehemiah 8:10) got stuck in my head. It would pop up
out of nowhere. Washing the dishes, serving guests at work, grocery shopping,
laying in bed, etc. I’m not all that old yet, but I’ve been on this earth long
enough to know that if a Scripture keeps popping into my head at random times,
it’s probably something I need to pay attention to. So I starting paying attention
to it. I started thinking about what joy is, and what strength is. And I realized
very quickly that joy isn’t one of the first words that pops into my head when
I think of strength. In fact, I don’t think I would think of it at all. When I
think about strength, the first word I think of is tough. Whether the person is physically tough or emotionally tough,
a strong person can handle a lot. I think of a strong person and I envision a
body builder, or a cancer survivor. But toughness is only the beginning of
strength.
So I started thinking about the meaning of joy. Of course,
joy is an internal state of happiness that isn’t determined by external
circumstances. A joyful person smiles during tough times and doesn’t lose heart
when things aren’t going right. But how do you get joy? And how does it make
you strong?
Through prayer and studying Scripture, God has slowly
changed my heart to become more joyful. I can’t tell you a step-by-step guide
to receiving joy, but I can tell you what it looked like in my life. It started
with an open heart. I had to admit that I wasn’t as joyful as I thought I was,
and I began praying that God could open my eyes to opportunities to be more
joyful. A prayer for opening eyes is always a dangerous prayer, and God very
quickly showed me how often I complain and lose heart. For me, my lack of joy
equated to a lack of thankfulness.
In the beginning, every time I noticed I wasn’t being
joyful, it was after the fact. I had already complained, already allowed myself
to get sour. I couldn’t change what had already happened, but I could ask for
forgiveness. It was only after I started to acknowledge that I was really
bad at being joyful that the opportunities started to show themselves. I noticed
before I reacted, and I could choose
to change my response. Instead of complaining, I began to look for things to be
thankful for. I began bringing a Scripture to work in my pocket, and every time
I reached for something in my pocked (which, as
a restaurant manager happens a lot), I felt the Scripture and remembered
to be thankful. Whenever I caught myself worrying about the future, I forced
myself to change my thoughts. I began each day with the question, “What can make today, just today, awesome?”
As I started to appreciate the moment, I realized how
valuable each moment is in our lives. This is when I remembered how much I love
photography. Michael, being so supportive and understanding, helped me to pick
out a nice camera so that I could continue to do what I love. This was the
x-factor in my journey towards joy. Once I started a hobby, my thought process
completely changed. I started to feel free.
I’m not a finished product. I’ve got plenty of opportunities
to grow. Every day I still catch myself complaining, frustrated, or annoyed
about things that aren’t important. But God is doing something in my heart that
I really needed to be done. I hardly every worry about the future anymore because
I’ve just got too many things that fill my mind that are about right now. I don’t have all the answers
about my future. In fact, I have fewer than I did before. Ask me about what I
want my career to be or when Michael and I will start a family and I honestly
won’t have an answer for either of those questions. But it’s okay! God didn’t
create me to accomplish a giant list of things. He doesn’t call me to plan my
life out in advance, and He certainly doesn’t think it’s necessary to waste my
time worrying about things that I have absolutely no control over. I’m trusting
that God will provide answers for me for those questions as I need them, and I
hope that you can trust that He will do them for me too. Every day I spend time
in His Word seeking His will for my life, and right now I am 100% sure that He
is calling me to stop planning and start
living.
I want to celebrate that God has changed my heart! He took
my anxious, worried heart and set it free! He helps me understand my sinful
nature and sculpts me to escape those patterns. God is so good! If you are
living life in a state of “blah,” just going through the motions rather than
enjoying each moment, I would like to encourage you to seek the Joy of the
Lord. It’s not a fast or easy transition but it might be exactly what you need.
“Come and hear, all
you who fear God;
Let me tell you what
he has done for me.
I cried out to him
with my mouth;
His praise was on my
tongue.
If I had cherished sin
in my heart,
The Lord would not
have listened;
But God has surely listened
and heard my prayer.
Praise be to God,
Who has not rejected
my prayer or withheld his love from me!”
Psalm
66:16-20
Here's a picture of me feeding a giraffe to show what pure joy looks like. (Yes, I'm happy and not afraid, lol.)
