Joy is a gift from God to each and everyone of His children, and it is part of the nine-fold Fruit of the Spirit. However, life has a way of squelching that joy. Whether you’re enduring a family crisis or a financial setback, a bad situation at work or dealing with the fallout of a false accusation, it is possible to maintain the joy of the Lord through every circumstance.
You ask How? I just lost my job…My child was diagnosed with cancer…My marriage is in trouble…My kids have forbidden me to see my grandkids…A fire destroyed everything we own… Due to living in a sin-cursed world, the list is endless.
When everything goes well, it is easy to focus on the Lord.
- To keep our eyes on Him.
- To keep our thoughts on Him.
- To keep our minds on Him.
But do we? That’s when God’s joy fills our hearts and lives the most. So often God’s children focus on themselves, not realizing that there is a difference between worldly happiness (which is temporal) and God’s joy (which is eternal). So when life falls apart at the seams, so do they. Now they turn to God in desperation, their happiness gone because it was misplaced, and a lack of joy, because their focus is on their circumstances; not the Lord.
Focusing on the Lord on a daily basis is good training for a crisis. That will help you maintain the right focus. But if you’re caught off guard, like I was a few weeks ago, and your focus shifts:
- From God to your circumstances
- From the Lord’s sufficiency to your challenge
- From the Lord’s power to your weakness
- From the Lord’s provisions to your sudden need
And your joy plummets, remember that joy is a part of the Fruit of the Spirit, which God gives to those who focus on Him – His goodness, His mercy, His lovingkindness, etc. So how do you restore the joy of the Lord in your life? Take our eyes off your circumstances and get them back on the Lord.
- What God can do. Not what we can’t do.
- God’s power. Not our weakness.
- God’s abilities. Not our inabilities.
Isaiah 26:3 says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” We experience the joy of the Lord when we trust Him completely, and joy causes us to praise God. I Peter 1:8 says, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:”