Special Guest Bog: joy - calm delight?

Here's another post from my sister Margie. Hope you enjoy it... 

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ramblings about the fruit of the spirit called JOY...

i used to be more of an outwardly joyful person. it was obvious when i was enthusiastic, excited or happy. life's junk seemed to rob me of my joy(or so i thought). circumstances set my attitude bar. i also thought that other people, i.e. john, were supposed to make me happy. once i figured out that no one was responsible for my joy except me, i decided to do it on my own. it was exhausting! i just couldn’t keep it up. i thought i was disappointing God because i didn't seem 'happy/joyful' all the time. if happiness wasn't pouring out of me, others would not be drawn to Jesus, right?

one day in my car, joyce told me that joy means 'calm delight.' this was really hard to believe. i knew when i 'felt' joyful, it certainly was not calm. delightful, maybe, but not calm. joyce must have really missed it. i mean, i had lead bible studies on joy, spoke and sang about it often, but still had not experienced anything very calm.

i was on the wrong track: mixing up happiness, which depends on my circumstances... with joy, which is a deep knowing that can only be found in Holy Spirit. joy comes from the heart of God. it is a deposit when we receive the Holy Spirit. all this i knew, yet still i was not getting the 'high' of outward joy.

do you know what joy means in the bible? you guessed it...'calm delight.' how could this be? there it is, joyce was right, as usual.

i don't have to perform for God or others to show my joy. what a great relief. He says i can have this calm delight at any time. even in the midst of trials that joy is accessible. i still have explosive joy-filled moments! i can't help it. God is so good, always.

praising and worshiping Him stirs up my joy. He doesn't need to be reminded of His awesomeness, but i do!

(oh yeah, joyce is joyce meyer. she's pretty wise.)

joy is expressed many different ways in the bible: shouts, songs, clapping, dancing, praising, celebrating...in exchange for sadness and mourning, in fullness, in His presence... open up the word of God and read it! it's full of JOY and so are you! just start counting your blessings and see if that doesn't bring delight.

as you journey along life's road, stir up the joy within and deposit it in the people you meet along the way. wear your smile!

grace and peace and JOY to you

(Oh, and today's quote from joyce:  keeping “self” happy is a full time job, but the pay at the end of the week is disappointing.)

Fruit of the Spirit: Joy

Many years ago my parents gave me a book for my birthday, or maybe it was Christmas - I'm not really sure and the occasion doesn't really matter. The book was called My Friend the Bluebird Who Lost His Song. This was a cute story about a little bluebird who has lost his song (duh). The bluebird goes to the window of a little girl and asks for help. Taking her friends along for the adventure, they find the bluebird's song and everyone lives happily ever after.

Cute story, right? What was really fun about it was that I was the little girl in the story, and my friends were the other characters. Well, my friends and my pets - guess I didn't have enough friends to fill in all the spaces. Hey - we lived in the country and had 3 houses near us. I was blessed to have the two friends I did have.

The story was a fun adventure that had us shrinking and riding on the bluebird's back on the great quest to find the lost song, only to discover that the song was right where it had always been, but deep down inside the bluebird. Whew. Crisis averted.

You may be wondering, what does this have to do with the fruit of the spirit? Well, I thought I'd retell that story with a little twist...

My Friend the Bluebird Who Lost His Joy

Once there was a little bluebird who was quite sad. One day, he went to the window of a little girl named Karen, and said, "Little girl, I seem to have lost my joy. Can you help me find it?" Karen replied, "Why, of course I will help you! Do you mind if I ask my friends to come along?" "That would be wonderful!", replied the bluebird.

So Karen, along with Ali, Christy, Lauren, Scott, Babetta, Leslie, Margie, Judy, and Carl, went out with the bluebird to see if they could find his joy.
They looked all over.
They looked in many of the places the bluebird liked to visit.
They looked under his wings but his joy wasn't there.
They looked in bluebird's nest but his joy wasn't there.
They looked around his favorite birdbath but his joy wasn't there.
They looked in the field he liked to fly over but his joy wasn't there.
They looked at his favorite bird feeder bu his joy wasn't there.

Where, oh where, could he have left his joy?

They asked the bluebird, "When did you last have your joy?"

"I remember soaring high in the sky, like I've seen the eagles do, and I began singing a song I'd never sung before. I had such a delight in my heart that I just couldn't explain. Why can't I feel that again?" The bluebird seemed more distraught than ever.

Then the friends all remembered at the same time  "Oh, why didn't we think of this sooner?"

The friends explained to the bluebird that he had what he needed all along. All he had to do was to ask Jesus, and to choose joy. Joy isn't about how you feel, but it's an overall attitude about everything. Take each moment and find the joy in it, even in the trials and hard times. If nothing else, Jesus is with you and that should be enough for you to find joy.

Then the bird flew off, soaring like an eagle and singing a new song, just like before.

He found his joy. Have you?