Joy is the simplest form of gratitude is a common sense for many people. After all, when a gift is given then when you see the delight on someone else’s face it makes you feel good. Here’s a better one: flip the sentiment and you will discover for you what is joy. Or rather, what will give you the opportunities to experience joy which is already in you by the presence of Jesus.
Following on from last week’s post and podcast on what joy means and why bother searching for it, here’s how to discover the foundation of a joyful life
Can you have more joy?
No. You either have it or you don’t. It’s like love…or faith. The disciples asked Jesus for more faith. And he (perhaps) laughed and was a little sarcastic concerning mountains and mustard seeds. AKA the concept of ‘more faith’ is silly. Just as ‘more joy’ is silly. Once you have joy inside then all there is is to be open to it.
As someone with high functioning autism (Aspergers), I had to answer a question someone asked me: what makes you happy.
That’s hard to say since happiness is an emotion. And although I experience emotions, I couldn’t clearly tell you the difference between them!
Instead, I applied a little business knowledge called the 5 ‘why’s’ to work out what for me happiness looked like.
That gave me some sense of what might help me to experience the joy of God which is already inside me because of my faith. Always a good thing!
You could also use the concept of having a life full of gratitude to be able to discover the patterns of what you are grateful for which could guide you to the same thing. Whatever you keep being grateful for could also be the door to experiencing more joy in your life. And as we saw in last week’s podcast and post, more joy helps you and others.
Check out the podcast for more details
Listen here or on your preferred service by searching for ‘onegraydot‘
Resources:
It was ‘Demolition man’ with Sylvester Stalone!
You can follow the Joy over Stress youversion bible plan with Neal Samudre.
Find out more at https://nealsamudre.com/overstress/ (glad to support this gent!)
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