Meaghan Mackenzie Wallace
With Karen Marie Wallace
2/3/2012
Joy is to be delighted or exuberant. Sometimes it’s easy to be joyful, when things go our way. At other times, we might find that complaining comes more naturally. Joy and complaining are mutually exclusive, I’m told. We are commanded by God to “rejoice in the Lord always”1 and to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth.”2 Joy is deep in the heart rather than skin deep and expresses itself in singing. When thinking of what is powerful, words like earthquake, volcano, or hurricane come to mind, and yet it is “the joy of the Lord [that] is your strength.”3 We must take time to remember this during the course of our day, to be vigilant and persevere through conflicting feelings and situations lest they steal our joy away from us. Some enemies of joy are anger, arguing, complaining, or having feelings of being downcast or bitter.
Joy, tied together with prayer and thanksgiving are what distinguishes rejoicing in the Lord from fleeting feelings of happiness. When we are truly joyful, we are obeying God in the most wonderful way.
1 Philippians 4:4
2 Psalm 100:2
3 Nehemiah 8:10