Joy of Marriage

 

    Marriage is not for everyone.  However, you are blessed to find the person God has for you then you should be grateful.  It brings joy and hard times.  It takes work because it is complex.  Marriage done God's way is the process of merging one man and one woman into one united front with Him in the middle.  

    Marriage was designed to love your spouse over yourself.  That means that you have to be able to trust your partner to put you first too.  Love is patient, kind, not envious, nor boasting, nor proud. It is not self-seeking, but honoring one another.  It overlooks annoyances and does not keep score on who is right or wrong.  Love rejoices in truth.  

    Every thought you have about your spouse strengthens or weakens the marriage.  Critical thinking destroys the foundation of your marriage.  It pushes away true intimacy.  Over time it will turn into resentment and possibly hatred.  No one has a more dominant influence in your life as your spouse.  That means how your spouse sees you will affect how you see you.

    Marriage has the power to bring satisfaction and fulfillment to both or it takes it away.  Since you will live this life together should you not do everything you can to make it good?  Do right by both of you with having a grateful and graceful heart..    

    No marriage is all good or all bad.  It has peaks and valleys.  Through the stress and struggle you can still find God's blessing in each other.  You can still grow together helping each other out, so you do not have to face life alone.  Do not create emotional bad habits.  Work though things together, so you will become stronger.  The closer you both move toward God, the stronger your marriage will be.

    Let go of the offenses that you spouse will cause.  Talk through them and pray over them, then let them go.  Move forward doing better.  Spend more time in the present and hopes for the future than dwelling on a past that you cannot change.  Be your spouses biggest champion.  Choose to build them up instead of tearing them down.  Your mind does have control on what kind of marriage you will have.

Psalm 133, Proverbs 5:18-20, 18:20-22, 19:13-14, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Song of Solomon 2:16-17, 8:6-7, Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18-19, & 1 Peter 3:1-7

Joy in Gratitude

 

    To have joy you need to have gratitude.  Gratitude is appreciation for what God has given you.  It is a force that draws people in.  It makes enduring aspects of life easier.  It all starts with thoughts of appreciation.  Don't focus on what is absent in your life.  Trust that God will give you everything you need.  If you don't have it, then now is not the time or it is something you don't really need.

    Gratitude is a choice in how you focus your attention.  It can take a turbulent mind and make it peaceful.  People will annoy you, but instead of focusing on what annoys you focus on why you love them.  When life is hard financially focus on what you have instead of what you can't get right now.  Live in the present not the past.  Practice praise and thanksgiving instead of complaining.

    Anyone can learn gratitude and cultivate it over time.  You just have to be intentional with your choices, directing your feelings, and growing your capacity.  Gratitude is a choice of focusing on your blessings instead of shortcomings.  It makes life feel abundant.  Gratitude is a feeling that develops through appreciation.  Gratitude is a learned skill of creating value in routine situations and relationships.

    No matter how bad life gets, you can still have gratitude.  If you hold onto your gratitude, then you will have joy.  You are more open to see God's grace in the situation and accept that He is there with you in the situation.  

    Express your gratitude through how you speak, confident attitude, and actions.  You know this by what your family, friends, and coworkers say about you.  Do you stand out as grateful or miserable?  Or are you just a wall flower?  Don't take God's blessings for granted.  Appreciate them in the moment.  Today write out a list of everything you are grateful for.  When hiccups happen throughout the day, pull out your list and review it or add to it.

Psalm 100, 1 Corinthians 4:14-16, Philippians 4:4-7, Colossians 2:6-7, 3:12-17, 4:2-6, & James 1:16-18

Joy of Creation

 

    You were created to live an exceptionally joyful and strong life.  Since we live in the fallen world it means that we have to work at it.  We need to feed our mind with high-quality ideas and thoughts of kindness and goodness.  

    Everyone has a mental battle of the human nature versus spiritual nature.  You construct your mind toward good or evil, joy or depression, success or failure.  How you think comes out of your mouth and directs your actions.  That means you choose how to direct the life plan that God gave you.  You are the one who chooses if it will be a success or disaster.

    How you think influences your sleep, digestion, pulse, and other body functions.  It is not a cure all or self-destruct, but your thoughts do affect your quality of life.  The conversations that you hold in your mind will reveal themselves in your dreams , how you conduct business, and in your relationships.  Do not forget that your thoughts are revealing who you are.

    Every thought brings life or death to you.  That is why it is so important to take captive and destroy all thoughts that are destructive.  Feed the thoughts that glorify God because they will bring forth life.  Most thoughts are just reruns and rewritings of your past.  Focus on today and seek a healthy future.  Holding onto the status quo is not enough.  Learn from the past, but move forward.  Do not become stuck.

    Joy requires self-discipline.  Take ownership of your mind to honor God faithfully.  Your mind with the Holy Spirit then can empower you to live an excellent life.  Be deliberate with where you allow your thoughts to go.  Trust God to protect your mind and refuse to allow todays annoyances, inconveniences, and disappointments to take root to cause discouragement.  

    Look at like with good intentions and pray over everything that you can't control or do not like.  God created you with free will.  That means you have control over your mind and to a certain degree your moods.  Use your free will to spend time in God's Word and allow it to feed you what you need.  

    Do not confirm to the world or you will struggle in circumstances, health, relationships, finances, and other toxic areas.  Instead, ask God to renew your mind every morning when you wake to be strong.  Write a list of positive aspects of who God made you to be and reflect on them to see where you can change how you think.  He made you uniquely you, so embrace that.  Refuse to conform to be anyone else other than the person God created you to be.

Psalm 19:1-3, 96:7-13, Romans 8:18-25, 12:1-13, 15:7-13, Philippians 4:4-5, Colossians 1:15-20, & James 1:16-18

Joy of Relaxing

 

    We all need a break sometimes.  God commanded that we take the Sabbath off, but he also set up times for national holidays for people to have a longer rest.  It is wise to take time to revitalize and invigorate your spirit.  Time of rest should bring joy and help you face the world.  Ask yourself what would be your ideal vacation.  Then start making plans to make that happen.

    If you are not able to go anywhere, then still take the time to refresh your mind.  Create a mental vacation to update your perspective, reload on enthusiasm, and rebuild potential.  Take the time to find joy before or during burnout.  

    You can get a mental getaway through habits, especially taking time to spend with God before your day starts.  Stale and stagnant thought processes will drain you over time affecting your attitude.  Make an effort to drop all negativity, especially the subtle ones.  Cut out all forms of criticism, condemning, gossip, or grumbling.  Refrain from exasperating mannerisms.  This includes your face, not just your words and actions.  

    Frustration and annoyances can dampen your joy.  While on vacation resist talking about things that bother you: physical, mental, emotional, or other.  Avoid self-defeating habits until you return home.  That way you have a time to look at how nice things are.  Maybe that can come home with you.  

    While on vacation allow inspiration to reenter your life by focusing on what is beautiful, excellent, true, just, and praiseworthy.  Spend extra time in prayer, forgiveness, and encouraging those with you.  Speak only positivity.  Smile more, laugh more, and allow the worry wrinkles to relax.  Notice how everyone around you is relaxed and acting differently.  Refresh the value you see in your relationships and circumstances.

    Avoid normal habits.  Explore to see if you can find new things you enjoy.  Try new food.  Embrace a new culture.  Pay attention to new sights.  Avoid the normal routine.  Make an effort to reach out to people.  Basically stir up the pot, but not so much that your lose the important ingredients in the pot.  Rediscover yourself and bring home the aspects you like to become permanent part of yourself.

Psalm 4:6-8, 16:9-11, 46:10, 91:1-8, 127, Proverbs 17:20-22, Matthew 11:28-30, John 14:27-29, Romans 15:7-13, & Philippians 4:4-7

Joy of Identity

 

    If you are Christian, then your Identity is found in Jesus.  This should give your heart joy.  It means that your identity is constant and true.  This truth should shape your self-concept.  God created you special for a purpose.  His creation is beautiful and loved.

    Any identity that you claim outside of Jesus is the self-ideal.  It will not stay constant.  Everything of this world that people put their identity changes: work, relationships, appearance, and others.  Achievement is nice, but it is only a step in life.  There are ups and downs, but if your identity is set in Jesus you can be constant.

    When you are self-critical you are insulting God's work.  You are allowing the world to influence you to the point that it is stealing your true identity.  It takes work to create and maintain a healthy, productive, and joy producing self-image.  Read the Bible for yourself to see what God says about your identity.  Meditate on it until you start believing it.

    You are an original masterpiece that God created.  He handcrafted you.  You became new again when you met Jesus.  You have purpose even if you do not understand it.  Your value is found in what God says about you: important, forgiven, new creation, protected, family, strong, unique, and victorious.

    You are unique.  That means that there has never been another you and never will be another you.  No one is better than you and you are not better than anyone.  You are one of a kind along with everyone else.  You were made for eternity.  Do not see yourself unworthy.  Instead, see yourself as God sees you.  

    When life is hard do not listen to the lies of the world.  Do not let other people steal your identity.  You belong to Jesus, but you have to embrace the identity that He gave you.  If you minimize it, then you will never have the joy it should provide.  You are someone worth dying for.  

Psalm 68:28-35, 103:7-18, 121:3-4, John 3:1-3, Romans 5:1-2, 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, Ephesians 2:8-22, Colossians 3:12-15, 1 Peter 2:9-10, & 1 John 5:1-5

Be Aware of Feelings

 

    Feelings are a gift from God.  They are indicators of when something is not right or when things are going well.  They are not the deciding factor of what is happening in life.  It is not all about being happy.  Happiness is a feeling.  Focusing on joy can help make happiness last, but is not guaranteed.

    It is your choice in how you look at life. You can focus on what is there or what is missing, broken or achieved, messed up or working, available or unavailable, possible or impossible, the excitement or the frightening.  How you approach life is on you.  The battle of the mind is real.  It is natural to go toward the negative.  That is why you have to work at changing how you think.

    Where you put your focus is going to shape your perspective.  The more you speak and think the more the outcome is likely to happen.  The more you focus on making something work, the more likely it will.  The more you invest in learning about and spending time with God, the stronger your positive feelings will become and consequentially the stronger important relationships will become.

    If your emotional life is not where you want it today, then it is time to shift your attentions to the blessings that God is placing in your life today.  Look at your strengths instead of weaknesses.  Acknowledge what is working instead of what is not working.  Resist the urge to turn to negative thoughts that lead to emotional spiraling.  

    Refuse to give any attention to the negative thoughts.  This can be very challenging for a realist.  They see both sides of the coin and try to fix what they can, but the negative is always there.  However, even realist can defeat negativity.  Write down all the good that God is doing in your life.  Write down your blessings, so that when negativity comes you can read all that God has given and is doing in your life.  

    In the beginning, your emotions may be heightened.  You can feel like you are on a roller coaster.  Ride it out.  Your emotions will stabilize.  If they do not, then maybe go to a doctor to make sure it is not a hormonal imbalance, but the fact that you can test for that is a blessing too.  Ultimately your focus will determine your feelings.

    Look at what you are reading, watching, studying, discussing, and pondering over.  Does it give life to your life or does it take away from your joy?  Where you put your mind is what will shape your thoughts and feelings.  What you internalize you will turn into emotions.  Starve worry, anxiety, doubt, fear, and all other things that lead to harmful emotions.  You can only produce positivity if you focus on what is good, right, and true.

Psalm 16:9-11, 34:15-18, 139:1-18, Proverbs 3:5-6, 4:23-24, 15:1-4, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 14:29-33, Ephesians 4:25-27, Philippians 4:6-7, Colossian 3:12-15, James 1:19-21, & 1 Peter 5:5-7

Goals of Joy

 

    You need to decide what joy means to you.  What do you want joy in your life?  Is it just for personal or to serve God?  Once you know what joy is and what you want from it, you can start setting small goals to get there?  Pray over it and see if God wants to change it up for you at all.

    Start with avoiding things and people that only focus on the negative.  You will never be able to escape negative thought processes until you do.  That means no more doom and gloom news.  It means limiting how closely you allow toxic people to get to you.  It means acknowledging where you need to change your thinking.

    Write out your life story: past, present, and future.  What do you want to see your future look like?  What needs to change to make that future a reality?  This is not about best intentions or nice thoughts.  This is serious change that you may have to take in your thinking and attitude.

    The whole point of a goal is to give you direction to move forward.  Start small and simple.  As you see progress, then you can grow your goals.  It can be saving for a long overdue vacation.  It can be finishing a book.  Maybe take a nap to recharge.  Maybe it is creating a check off list to get your house clean.  It doesn't matter where you start, just start.  

    By the way getting your hands and feet in dirt help bring out happy hormones.  That is why gardening is therapeutic.  Cleaning your house helps with an healthy attitude.  It also can bring about a since of accomplishment.

    Make goals to grow your faith and finances too.  God wants you to be a good steward, so that means you need to know how to manage time and money.  You need faith to have joy.  If you want more joy, then you need more faith.  

    Being able to set goals and move forward to achieve them reveal self-discipline.  That is an aspect that God likes to see grow.  Self-discipline means you can control your mind to focus on Godly love, excellent things, and praise to God.  Your goals reveal what you want in life, but also focus on how to make it happen.

    When setting your goals focus on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.  Be specific and write them out.  That way you can check them off as they are achieved.  Without written goals to help you focus, you you will waste mental energy just surviving and allow your mind to go places that will take you away from your joy.  Your mind follows patterns.  It takes time to set a pattern toward joy.  

    Joy-producing goals force you to grow.  They will simplify your life.  They will build character and discipline.  You will be able to see things more clearly and show you potential for a different way of living.  Over time they will transform your world.  

Psalm 92:4-7, 94:16-19, 100, Luke 2:8-12, 15:3-10, Romans 12:9-13, Galatians 5:22-23, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, & 1 Peter 1:8-9