Finding Joy Through the Lord

There are often times in life when we are faced with tough situations, whether it involves relationship conflicts, death, struggles with school, or maybe personal health issues. We live in a fallen world, so problems like these and many others will constantly be placed in our lives. And as humans, when we are faced with these situations, we often make the mistake of turning to Earthly things for comfort.

If there comes a time when there is a death in the family, one may grieve by drinking. Maybe a roadblock comes in a relationship –friend or romantic, we often turn to a friend or mentor. There are so many examples of struggles that we can go through on a daily, and there will always be the option to turn to material things or other humans for comfort. And this will result in us constantly getting hurt. It will become a never ending cycle of disappointment. These things that we often turn to can cause temporary happiness, but God—the key to eternal life, can give us more joy, happiness and peace than we could ever obtain from anything on earth! 

Over the past couple months I would say I have gained a new perspective on life. I have learned that when we continuously rely on God, trust in Him, love others and maintain a relationship with Him, life can be so much more enjoyable! 

Ooooo...joy and happiness and peace. That sounds fantastic.

• God calls us to love others as He loves us. ["This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you."John 15:12] This is such a simple sentence to say, but not always the easiest act to carry out. We can say that we "love" someone and still think horrible thoughts about them, talk about them behind their back and many other things; it's when we train ourselves to clear our minds of negative thoughts that we are able to start loving others easier. This isn't something that we can do on our own--we must pray and ask God to help us. We must ask him to see others as He sees them, to rid our minds of all things negative and to love. We need to genuinely love others. Love them deeply. |Love God. Love People. By loving God, you will love others.|
• When life is great and it seems like everything is going as planned we may thank God for the blessings, (i know i do), but what about when something comes up that wasn't in OUR plan? There may be obstacles that come up in life, like the ones previously mentioned, and when these pop up people usually do one of the two things: Push God away, blame Him for the bad things, question Him; or Grow incredibly closer to Him, asking Him to provide strength to them. Both of these are understandable reactions. It is not always easy to understand why things don't happen in our favor, but that's when we need to remember that God's plan is greater than anything that we could ever imagine! So when we are faced with trials, we should thank God for giving them to us. Not only that, but through our struggles we should also thank Him for the blessings that we already have, making it known how thankful we are for all we have been given. God provides, always has and will continue to. So we need to appreciate all the blessings, big and small. When we focus our energy on all the good, the bad doesn't always seem so bad! |When God gets the glory, you get the joy and the world gets the good.|
• Gaining a relationship with Christ is the number one thing on the to do list of all the to do lists ever created! All things are pretty much impossible without it. When we pursue a relationship with Him, not only does He get excited about it but we get SO much joy from it!--Think about when you make a new friend or get into a relationship and how much fun it is, how happy it makes you, it really is just a great feeling. So imagine how beautiful a relationship with God is...The One who will never forsake you. Who is always by your side. Who you can literally talk to anytime! Now an amazing bond like this can't be formed overnight, just like any relationship. It takes work work WORK. Constant prayer and giving thanks. Having personal time with Christ and reading the Bible. Worshiping Him no matter what the circumstances. Keeping a firm foundation. Once we put the foot in the door, joy will overflow! The Holy Spirit will be inside of us and in Galatians 5:22 it says [But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness...]. This is just proof that so much good will come from it. |No God, no happiness. Know God, know happiness.|

While we are occupying our temporary home, Earth, we need to be on the lookout and keep our eyes open to the goodness and beauty of God. He reveals quiet blessings to us all the time. YOU could be someone's blessing. Simply smiling at someone could make their day. The Bible constantly mentions, "inspire shouts of joy"--you can do this by radiating God's lights. 

DON'T FORGET TO SHINE.

-e

["The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust Him with all my heart. He helps me and my heart is filled with JOY. With my song I praise Him." Psalm 28:7]

p.s. comments? questions? helpful hints? plz let me know!