December 23, 2009
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Today Is One of the Happiest Days of My Life!
One of my prayers for this past year was to grow in the joy of the Lord. I had noticed that while I loved to serve God and obey Him, I would often find myself stressed over different things than moving in joy. Despite praying for joy, I still felt stress and negative thoughts. Then God told me to start claiming this every day…
“Today is the one of the happiest days of my life!”
It sounds cheesy, and believe me I felt kind of dumb claiming it early on. And I had to ask myself, “Why!? Why is today such a happy day? I’m not going to claim something that isn’t true.” And it made me do a reflection on my life. What really makes me happy? What do I depend on for my joy? If certain things were taken from my life, could I still be happy? Then I realized, with all honesty, that my real joy MUST come from God. And it does! And so when I claim, “Today is one of the happiest days of my life” I also add, “Because God is with me!” He is my joy. Heaven is HIM. And He is with me always, even in the tougher times. Thats why joy can’t be stolen.
Perspective then began to change for me. To be honest, the sky began to look a lot more blue to me. The clouds and the sun became more beautiful. I began to notice little things to be thankful for. I remember driving with a friend who wasn’t in the best of moods. She was complaining about different things that I could see didn’t really even need her attention. As I was driving and listening, I noticed how beautiful things were around me. I said, “Wow, today is such a clear, beautiful day!” She responded negatively, “Yeah, you notice because its usually so polluted.” And then I said, “Wow, look at those buildings, the architecture is really cool!” And she responded, “Yeah, but the buildings are so dirty, they need to be cleaned.” With every positive thing I would say, she would respond negatively. And then she suddenly realized how she was acting and stopped complaining and was silent for a while. She too began to see how a lot of life is all about perspective… that joy is a choice. Her mood soon began to lighten as well.
Choose joy. God is with you! =) 1Thessalonians 5:16 – “Be joyful always.” God bless and Merry Christmas!
Comments (1)
Thanks for the great entry on joy:)! Wishing you and your kids a very merry and blessed Christmas JM:D!!