Choosing Joy

Something I've learned this year is that sometimes it comes easy, but other times we have to choose joy. It's not something that necessarily happens to us, and because we live in a fallen world, it's usually not circumstantial.
It's kind of like love...the real kind. You know, how if we relied on our "love feelings" to come naturally, that we would fail miserably at doing what God commands of us? But rather we make a choice each day to love people...because it's hard to love someone...because - let's face it - we are not the most lovable of people. :)

I've come to view joy the same way. If we allowed joy to be circumstantial, to depend on how "good" things were going - because we live in a fallen world - wouldn't we fail miserably at having a joyful heart? How could we ever "consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds..." if we didn't choose to do so?

The reason this is on my mind is because I have found myself asking for God to grant me joy at various times lately. I'm not depressed. It's not hormonal. It has come at those times in the night when the house is quiet and my mind will sometimes drift to the things that have occurred in our lives this past year...the death, the sickness, the trials, the losses...

And when I ask, He grants.

This morning I was taking the kids to the park and I had this overwhelming urge to want to go pick up my nephew Tucker and take him with us. Of course this was followed by sadness and lots of tears because I can't do that. I prayed for joy in that moment.

Almost immediately I was overcome with thankfulness. Thankfulness that, even though so many bad things happen in this world and sometimes we can be overwhelmed by them, Jesus still came here...Jesus still lives here - in the hearts of ALL who follow Him (that's a whole lot of JESUS on earth!). And how AMAZING and wonderful that we don't have to wait until Heaven to experience Jesus, but that He's in the murk here in earth, and will be with us forever in eternity, too.
The fact that He desires us to still experience joy here on earth and not wait until Heaven was huge for me today!

And since Jesus' presence on earth is in the hearts of those who follow Him, the more who accept Him as Lord means there's that much more Jesus on earth...right? I know this is simple, but this concept ignited my soul today and made me sadly realize it's been a while since I've personally led someone to know Jesus.

Anyway, just some thoughts today Thanks for reading. :)