Choose Joy

Every morning as part of my devotions & prayers I am reminded of the choice I have in how I approach each new day;

“I choose to rejoice in God’s righteousness and mercy today, joining with the ancient praise of all God’s people in the words of a certain Psalm.“

And over the past few weeks I’ve been guided through the beatitudes, via the Lectio 365 prayer app which you can download here. 

I have also read a number of blogs and other articles in various publications and the following one ‘Cultivating a Life of Worship‘ written by Dallas Willard on the Renovaré site has stood out for me, and the portion I’m sharing below is something I keep coming back too: 

“Love is the foun­da­tion of the spir­i­tu­al life and joy is a key com­po­nent in the Christ life. Joy is not plea­sure, a mere sen­sa­tion, but a per­va­sive and con­stant sense of well-being. Hope in the good­ness of God is joy’s indis­pens­able support. 

In a moment of wor­ship and praise, Paul spon­ta­neous­ly expressed a bene­dic­tion on the Chris­tians in Rome: ​“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believ­ing, that you may abound in hope by the pow­er of the Holy Spir­it” Romans 15:13 (New American Standard Bible). This verse address­es the pro­found needs of the emo­tion­al side of the Chris­tian’s life. 

The great cen­tral terms of life in Christ are ​“faith,” ​“hope,” ​“love,” and ​“peace.” These are not just feel­ings; in sub­stance, they are not feel­ings. They are con­di­tions involv­ing every part of an indi­vid­u­al’s life, includ­ing the body and the social con­text. They serve to equip us for the engage­ments of life. They do, how­ev­er, have feel­ings that accom­pa­ny them, and these pos­i­tive feel­ings abun­dant­ly char­ac­ter­ize those liv­ing in the pres­ence of God.

These feel­ings dis­place the bit­ter and angry feel­ings, that char­ac­ter­ize life ​“in the flesh” — life in human ener­gies only. They even trans­form the sick­en­ing emo­tion­al tones that per­me­ate and large­ly gov­ern the world around us — even many times the Church world. 

Jesus taught us to abide in God’s love ​“that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” John 15:10 – 11 (New American Standard Bible). Our joy is full when there is no room for more. Abid­ing in God’s love pro­vides the unshak­able source of joy, which is in turn the source of peace. All is based in the real­i­ty of God’s grace and goodness. 

Faith, hope, love, joy, and peace—the ​“mag­nif­i­cent five” — are insep­a­ra­ble from one anoth­er and rec­i­p­ro­cal­ly sup­port each oth­er. Try to imag­ine any one with­out the others!“

So as we approach the next day, week, or month let’s approach it with an attitude of ‘joy!’ For that is a choice we each can make – regardless of what is going on in our world, and will help us get through those things that could have us focusing on the wrong things. As James alludes to in his letter “to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (refer to James 1, New International Version).

Blessings ’til next time 🙂