Keep Your Joy

“Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.”
‭‭Lamentations‬ ‭5:15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I was reading a devotional about losing your joy. I’m not talking about losing your happiness. Happiness comes and goes depending on your circumstances. I am talking about losing something that we need to keep...our joy.

The devotional said that joy is the easiest thing to lose. We can lose our joy in a traffic jam or bad news or an argument with someone or a unexpected bill or stress at work. The enemy wants us to lose our joy. Because when we lose our joy, the world looks at us and decides that the Christian life does not work. The world does not decide against our testimony when bad things happen to us. The world writes us off when we have no joy in the midst of our circumstances.

What should we do about this? Because deep down, we want to be different. We want our lives to be a testimony to a lost world. Ask God to give it back.

“Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭51:12‬ ‭NASB‬‬

I don’t know about you but I struggle to keep my joy. When I handle this in the right way, I outright ask God to restore my joy. You know what happens, he gives it back...every single time. Notice that I did not ask him to change my circumstances. Just my joy in the midst of those circumstances.

When Mark and I aren’t getting along and I am despondent over this, I ask God to restore the joy in our marriage. He does his every single time because God is able to do this and wants to do this.

When I ask God to restore my joy when my job stresses me out, he does this. Realize that this is a daily, minute by minute thing. The request for joy is not one that lasts and we never have to ask again. God wants us talking to him all day long.

When the death of 3 precious people in our lives occurred last year, our joy was jolted. But when I think of them now, I am so excited that they are with Jesus, dancing around with no suffering. I think my dad is having the best time with that twinkle in in eye.

Don’t believe that some people are just meant to be joyful while you are not. This is a lie from the enemy. Facebook is not a barometer of how joyful someone is. Be careful when you scroll the Facebook news. You will wrongly think that everyone is joyful and you are not.

Ask him over and over again to restore your joy. Strive to become a joyful Christian. This is not a suggestion. God says,
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:4‬ ‭NIV‬‬