Skip to main content

Being intentional with Joy

James 1: 2 

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds” 

Have you ever not been in a good mood? Have you ever felt like things are just not going your way? If you answered yes to any of those questions, it shows that you are human. Problems occur and things happen that can make us upset, and that is an unfortunate reality we have to face in this world. 

For me, one of my resolutions this year is to be more joyful. If I had to make a book about the year of 2024, the title of it would be “A sequence of difficulties”. In my life, it seemed I was experiencing problem after problem and issue after issue. I couldn’t escape them. The bitter truth is that problems and issues are inevitable, but our attitude towards them isn’t.  

At that time, I was angry at God for allowing all those things to happen to me, but in retrospect I can be grateful to see the work God was doing inside of me, the resilience he was building, and the character he was moulding.  

I think as Christians we sometimes reject joy. I know it sounds crazy, but can we honestly say that everytime a problem comes, we choose to see what we are grateful for through that? I’m guilty of it, plenty of times I’ve ignored to see all the blessings around me and fixated on all the issues I was facing. One phrase I heard in church growing up was “If you have nothing to be thankful for, be thankful that you are alive”. I never understood the weight of that statement until now. Often times we embed our circumstances with emotional idolatry: choosing to stay in a state of sadness, rather than looking towards the source of our solutions.  

Looking more closely at the verse, there’s one word in that I wanted to focus on today: that word being “consider”. Consideration is all about perspective, how we think and rationalise the situations that are presented to us. A lot of things are mentioned in the Bible, but you will never find it saying that you will never experience issues or problems. Everything is temporary: our issues and circumstances, the only thing that isn’t temporary is what we choose our relationship with God to be. Are we going to be people that let temporary worries affect our praise? Or are we going to give thanks in all circumstances? (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-17) 

Authentic joy comes from recognising God’s character throughout anything you may or may not be experiencing. Once we dwell within God’s goodness, we are able to abide in the joy he desires for our life. Don’t let your problems affect your gratitude: the very fact that you are alive today is a reason to be thankful.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Equipping ourselves

Ephesians 6:13   “ Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand”   Recently I had a conversation with one of my friends. Before our interaction, I didn’t set any expectation other than simply just seeing how they were doing. To my surprise, my friend asked me a question: and what was just a simple question, felt like an opportunity for me to express my faith. If I had not already had a foundation of God’s word, it would have been a missed opportunity. We are all presented with opportunities, some we may not be aware of, others we may not feel comftable in expressing, but all of them we need to be equipped for.    Our faith and belief are counter-cultural: it doesn’t agree with the views of today and goes against the perspectives and viewpoints of the society we live in.  As long as you claim to be a Christian, there will be people that dis...
Post a Comment
Read more

God is proud of you

Mark 1:11 “And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” A couple months ago, I had a friend say to me “God is proud of you” and I nearly broke down in tears. How could five words impact me so much? Never hearing or honestly believing it, my perspective changed on a lot of things. We all are our worst critic, and with that comes being very hard on ourselves. Living lives aiming to be perfect, yet sometimes we miss how detrimental that can be: associating our value in our pursuit. I think at times we treat God as a form of teacher or boss: in the sense that if we provide something, whether it’s a high grade or a substantial amount of work, we are deserving of validation. In our lives, this may look like praying a certain number of times, maybe it’s fasting for a couple more hours, or even reading an extra chapter of the bible. Whatever it is, I think we are all guilty of thinking that if we do more, that somehow God’s love for us will be cor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pressure doesn’t make diamonds it points to it

Psalm 118: 5-6   “ Out of my distress I called on the  Lord ; the  Lord  answered me and set me free. The  Lord  is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”   I never understood the phrase ‘pressure makes diamonds’: obviously I understood the context, however I could never relate to it. The phrase suggests that press ure is something to be embraced or celebrated because something good was going to come out of it, but in my life, it was never the case. Every form of pressure that approached me seemed to lead to disappointment. With every exam I put pre ssure on myself for, were the ones I did the worst on. With every basketball game I put pressure on myself for, were the ones I played the worst. It was an unescapable loop .     I’m not saying every pressure leads to disappointment, but pressure that is relied on your strength will eventually catch up to you. Our pressure doesn’t make diamonds, it points to our diamond: our tre...
Post a Comment
Read more