Do you feel discouraged sometimes when we face challenged by some problems?
Do you ever feel that I am, not at all special?
Even sometimes we start to copy others or to compare ourself to others and all these things start to discouraging us.
we may think that we have to give up on our joy and we often get upset when we get discouraged…!
Right…?
But a Bible verse says, “The joy of the Lord is my strength”.
What joy is this talking about?
Do you love to see rainbows?
When I was a young girl I used to wait for the rainbows to appear in the sky and I used to jump and laugh in joy to see the rainbow,
Because it is so colourful and I love colours…
I love to see colours around me because that gives me a smile on my face.
One of my student loves rainbows too and everytime when I ask her to draw something, she says this one line, “Ms. Karishma, can this be in rainbow colours?”
And I always tell her, “Esther, draw and colour what gives you joy” and she makes many things but in rainbow colours and I cannot tell you how happy she is to see her drawing.
Sometimes she colours the vegetables with all rainbow colour and tells me, “Ms. Karishma look at this, even my vegetables are so colourful” and the joy of her heart can be seen on her face and that smile that joy gives me joy and I start to smile and laugh with her.
These are the colour of joy when different things work for your happiness and doesn’t matter how odd they are or best they are but all things work together for our good, right?
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
” Romans 8:28
So, can we say, that the joy is contagious?
Yes! The joy of our heart is contagious because when you smile at someone the person smiles too and that time one smile makes two smiles..
But how can we be joyful in difficult situation?
One this I am learning these days is, how can I be more patience?
How can I give more grace to myself and people around me?
And when I saw this verse, “The joy of the Lord is my strength” I was honestly encouraged to have a joyful heart…
But I know it’s not easy to have it all the time but we know that we learn something when we practice it, so having joy in our heart is like carrying colours in our hand and just spreading it all around.
“The joy of the Lord is your strength”. The Bible says God gives us joy and peace. It tells us that real joy comes from God and is ours forever. The joy that is found in God’s presence isn’t static; it transforms and regenerates us.
Sometimes, though, it may seem like hard work to feel joyfull. The task gets easier when you recognize that you have the power to govern how you think.
There isn’t anything that can really take away your knowledge of God or stop you from feeling spiritual joy. You can let this spiritual sense be yours, instead of thoughts of discouragement or despair. If it still seems difficult to express joy, you might even need to argue with yourself that you have power from God over it…
Keep your strength up by being joyful and get your joyful colours be the rainbow of someone’s life.
But when it’s difficult, read the word of God and be encouraged.
The one person who can keep you joyful is you yourself.
Understand the power of joy and Be a colourful joy of someone’s life.
Let the joy of the Lord be your strength!
By:Karishma George