Sometimes, I don’t know why, but I loose my joy. I don’t know where it goes, maybe it goes where all those socks go when you wash them, and I have been looking for them for years.
Sometimes this joy of mine, leaves quick and takes a long time to find again.
But then is joy something I need to find or is it something that I have all the time and I just don’t know how to apply it.
Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, JOY, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
There it is the fruits of the spirit and there it is – JOY. Joy is a fruit of the spirit. A fruit of the Holy Spirit. So if I have the Holy Spirit living in me then Joy should be there as well.
Joy has already been given to me along with all the other fruits. So the problem isn’t that I loose it, it really can’t leave me because it comes with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit never leaves me.
So I guess the problem is me, plain ole me and my issue with the applying of this joy given to me by the Holy Spirit.
I haven’t lost my joy, I haven’t got to find it, there is no where to search.
It dwells within me and I just need to turn on the joy button and let it shine.
How do I turn on that joy button you may ask??? For me, I need to spend more time in God’s word.
I have been slack lately and I need to start getting up early again and reading my bible before the children rise. I am still reading my bible but I am playing catch up all the time. For me I need routine and that is my plan.
It may be different for you, but just remember we never lose the fruits of the spirit, they dwell within.
Me too! I can easily slip into sadness and I agree with you that part of the solution is to keep to my routines and make sure I spend time in God’s word every day. My post this week is kind of touching on this as I am feeling a bit out of control at the moment and I find routine certainly helps.
I find Jayne that once I let things slip it is hard to get back, and I really need to keep a good routine. The weather at the moment isn’t conducive to wanting to get up in the morning but we must keep pushing on. Hope things improve for you and I pray that we can both find our routines again. What are you cooking this week??? Blessings
Thank you for your kind words. I am praying that we find our way again too. I really do need to keep to routine as it doesn’t just affect me, but puts the kids out of sorts as well.
I just posted my meal plan for this week. Trying out a new book. I won’t follow it to the letter but am planning on using some of the information in there to meal plan in the future.
Thanks Jayne, we need to keep encouraging each other, we all seem to go through the same things. I find that too, no routine, kids a bit whacky. Looking forward to seeing what you cook. We are eating heaps of sausages, and mince, would dearly love some chicken ;-), why are we never happy :-). Thanks and blessings to you this week. xxxx
“…for the joy of YHWH is your strength.”
Neh 8:10c
Thank you Marcus for your encouragement. Blessings
Dear Terri, God bless your heart. You have shared a beautiful article. I realize that if I steal little time to show others kindness I have joy. I can stop to think about me and focus on others and more importantly on what God has in store for me.
Many Blessings Terri
Thank you Ifeoma for your lovely comment, you are right, focusing on others really does give us joy. Blessings to you my friend, have a great week. xxx
Yes, joy definitely can seem be elusive at times. Thankfulness and time with God tends to bring it back for me 🙂 Praying for joy in abundance, despite circumstances. Cheers, Tiffany
Thank you Tiffany for sharing your thoughts with us. Thankfulness is a good key to turning us around, often I just need to think of all that we are blessed with to feel so much better. Thank you for your prayer for us all. Blessings
Absolutely right on. Choose Joy, always. visiting you this week from Modest Mom link up. feel free to visit back anytime, Bless you & yours, Shandra
Thank you Shandra for stopping by and for your encouraging comment. This should be our motto: Choose Joy Always. Blessings
I just finished studying every reference in the Bible to the word joy and writing it out along with the Hebrew or Greek meaning of that particular occurance, and I put a lot of it together in a free printable at my blog. I hope it blesses you.
Thank you so much Lizzy for sharing about your study of the word Joy. I will pop over and have a look, and I appreciate your work with this. Have a great week. Blessings
I too have gotten out of the quiet time habit. So I understand completely when you shared about spending more time with God. I think we get in our peaks and valleys. A good thing our Father understands this and loves us anyways. Appreciate you sharing your lovely heart on Tuesday Talk today.
Thank you so much Michelle for your lovely words. You are right we are blessed that our Father understand us totally and still loves us. Blessings to you and yours.
Yes, how blessed and wonderful to know He will never leave us! We all feel like we have lost our joy, but thank you for reminding us that it is there all the time! I love your little thought about the “joy button”. So precious!
Thanks again Cheryl for stopping by and blessing me with your words of wisdom. Wouldn’t it be great to have a panel attached to us that we could just press to bring on joy, love, peace and definitely patience :-). But once again these things never leave us. Thanks and blessings to you and yours.xxx
Amen!!
I don’t know about you, but I get really busy in doing and taking care of things that I don’t take care of the spirit. When that area slacks off, the entire body and mind goes down hill fast. Then it seems like no hope, no joy, no happiness (yes, I know they are all 3 different).
What works in my little bitty corner of the world, after a busy day chasing the tribe and separating the boys for the umpteenth time, dealing with 45 minute meltdowns from Jess (you’d think at 11 and 13 that wouldn’t be such a huge thing), and all the things parents do, and many of the things parents of multiple special needs kids do…is to sit after all the kids are in bed and work with hand sewing and listen to sermons on cd. I may not look up all the references, but I still need to hear the Word somehow. When I’m able to feed the spirit, even if it’s just a little bit late in the night, it helps so much to make the coming day all the better, to be filled up with whatever it takes to make it through the day until the next refill in the night with sewing in hand. Some days it takes a whole lot more than a sermon, it takes tons of prayer, bible reading, crying, etc. That joy is there, it may get buried under a mountain sometimes with all the work of the tribe and tending my in-laws’ needs, but it’s there and shows a glimmer right when needed.
((hugs))
Do you use any kind of bible reading plan or schedule? I’ve tried those, with good intentions of following it, and then get side tracked early on and then feel defeated that I couldn’t follow a simple schedule. I’ve tried chronological and a bible in a year thing and so on, never have completed one. Maybe some year….
Thank you Angie for sharing your heart with us. I so appreciate that you took the time to share what works for you in your busy circumstances. I like that you incorporate hand sewing and listening to sermons, sometimes we turn on the TV and that definitely doesn’t give us joy, yet you take your one of your favourite past times (quilting) and use it to soak in the Word of God.
I am following Donna Reidland over at Soul Survival with her Bible in a Year Plan. I have only done this type of reading once before many years ago. I am behind at the moment and need to catch up. I am determined to not just skip days, otherwise I will loose motivation. I find, for myself that this works and following along with a commentary really helps me understand what I am reading. I am definitely not perfect in this and I understand how you feel with getting side tracked and then feeling defeated. It sounds great what you are doing with your hand sewing and sermons, it sounds a great way to end days that can get out of control.
Thanks for stopping by and I am so pleased to hear from you. Blessings to you and your family.
Terri, I love your open, honest, transparent writing…yes, I’ve been right there with you…and you are so right, God’s Word is the panpharmacon (the salve that soothes every wound)…once I slather His Word on my heart, let it soak in, and BELIEVE it, my joy returns…God is so good to us, a Good, Good Father, ALL the time…love you sweet friend!
Thank you so much Beth for your lovely and very encouraging comment. Thank you also for teaching me a knew word and for the explanation, it’s a great word. I also love how you use it with the Word of God, slather Word on my heart, then soak and Believe, such excellent advice. Thank you also for your love, it is so appreciated. Blessings and love to you to xxxx
I also can “lose my joy” at times, and you are so right – it’s all about perspective and the Bible is a wonderful perspective changer.
God bless you,
Gail
Thank you so much Gail for your comment. Blessings to you and yours.
Your words in this post were so profound!
I never thought of it that way, but indeed Joy does dwell within it.
I once heard a Pastor say that too often we “stuff the Holy Spirit” deep down underneath all the baggage and distractions that we carry around every day. With that stuffing down are indeed the fruits of the Spirit.
I agree, my joy comes with time in the Word and in prayer. Thanks for spurring me on sister. 🙂
Thank you so much Karen for your kind and encouraging comment. I would love to be able to express how much your comments and friendship spur me on, you are such a blessing to me. Let’s try and not stuff our fruits underneath all our baggage, what a great analogy. Have a great weekend, my friend. Blessings
So true; spending time in the Word sure does make a difference, doesn’t it? Sometimes I have to go wandering the land of the lost socks for mine too. 🙂 Good thoughts this morning, thanks for sharing. 🙂 Happy to be neighboring you at the weekend brew linkup this morning. ~ blessings ~
Thank you so much Brenda for stopping by and sharing, and it’s so good to know that I am not in that land of lost socks by myself. Blessings to you this weekend.
This is a powerful reminder that I needed to hear right at this very moment. I’m glad I got to visit today. I hope you can drop by for a visit at TGI Saturdays. Have a fun weekend and a blessed week.
Thank you so much Latisha for stopping by and for the invite, I have popped over and linked up and I appreciate you hosting. Blessings
Recently it has become apparent to me that slipping away from the habit of attending to the gifts within each day ~ that also reduces the awareness of, experience of, joy as a child of God. Visiting from today’s link up, may you nurture joy today.
Thank you so much Lisa for sharing your insight with us her today. May we all nurture Joy and all the other fruits/giftings of the Holy Spirit. Blessings
So glad to read this much needed truth today!
Thank you Elizabeth for stopping by and for your encouraging comment. Blessings to you today.
Thanks for the reminder about joy being one of the fruits of the Spirit. Adjusting our focus (with a more disciplined Bible reading schedule) is bound to help. I’m not too worried, though, if I don’t feel the emotion of joy in a big way. Emotions come and go, and sometimes depend on small physical things, like how well I slept the night before. But I know God is good and that I will feel that joy again, even if I don’t today.
Thank you Constance for stopping by and for your comment. You are right emotions come and go but God doesn’t and He is good. Thanks and blessings to you.
Thankful for the reminder that we need to look in the right places to find those blessings that have already been given to us.
When I really needed to find the JOY that was the buoy in my storm, Psalm 16:11 reminds me that Joy comes in His presence. Like you mentioned, needing to spend time rooted in His Word leads us into the the wellspring of His goodness and out of that flows those gifts that become fruits in our living.
Blessings,
Dawn
Thank you so much Dawn for sharing your thoughts with us, I really liked how you put it, “the wellspring of His goodness”. Blessings to you and yours. xxx
I do the same thing Terri, “lose” my joy. But as you say we never truly lose it, because the Holy Spirit never leaves us.
This scripture helps (and challenges!) me as well: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15: 11). Jesus came to complete our joy 🙂
Thank you MB for sharing this scripture with us, that is a good one, definitely. Thank you for stopping by. Blessings
visiting you from the weekend brew – may I suggest that spreading more of God’s joy to others will help your heart to be flooded with great joy?
Here is a list of 50 ways to do so without spending a single penny –
http://www.spreading-joy.org/site/50-ways-to-make-a-difference-without-spending-a-penny/
have fun spreadingJOY and making a difference!
@spreadingJOY
Hey Marie, thank you for stopping by and sharing your list with us. You are right, when we share and do for others it does bring joy and we also don’t need to break the budget to do it. Thanks and blessings to you.