Choose Joy

Choose Joy

Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and the determined choice to praise God in all things.

Kay Warren

When life falls apart, choose joy. When people are abrasive, choose joy. When the bottom drops out of your finances, choose joy. When you’re exhausted and feel like giving up, choose joy. When your prayers aren’t answered in the way you wanted, choose joy. When people you trusted betray you, choose joy. When your body hurts all over, choose joy. When you feel forgotten, choose joy. Joy is not a vague sense of happiness that encompasses you in an ethereal cloud—it’s an attitude you purposefully decide to embrace many times a day.

In this world you will have trouble (John 16:33, NIV). Joy, for you, means choosing to be hopeful because I am still in control. As surely as you know your own name, know that in the end, I will make everything all right. I am still all-powerful. I am still everywhere-present. I am still all-knowing. Discover the truth about joy. In a fallen world, there is a thread of sorrow even in the middle of exhilarating happiness. Likewise, even in the throes of the deepest grief, there is the light of Christ. Find your real joy there—in the person of My Son—and then start praising Me. Very soon your spirits will be lifted, your pain will decrease, your hope will return, and your confidence will be in Me.

He will once again fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.

Job 8:21