“CHOOSE JOY“

 (Living life beyond your circumstances)

As you’ve studied this past week, have you found you’ve been a little more thankful?  As I’ve read about Paul and his struggles, I have to say, I’ve been reminded of how much I have to be thankful for.  With that realization I have also felt a sense of shame.  Watching Paul deal with some pretty difficult people, in some pretty scary situations, I came face to face with my own pettiness.

I have to chuckle.  Remember in the introduction I asked the question “do you want more joy”?  I asked in anticipation that everyone would join with me and say “yes, who doesn’t”!  What I am discovering however, is that its not as easy as I expected.  There is so much self-examination to be done and so many not-so-pretty areas to be uncovered.  As we move along to Principal 2 – “A Humble Mind” I’ve got a feeling we will continue to be challenged.  It would seem there is going to be some personal pain to go through for us to get to joy.  But of this I am confident – once we attain that pefect joy, the joy that Christ wants to give us, His joy, we will say “it was worth it all”.

And so, in the words of Paul, we press on.

“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full”. (John 15:11)

So glad you’re here,

Sandra

Click here to CHOOSE JOY – Principal 2  “A Humble Mind”

 Has it been a crazy week for you?  It sure has for me.  If there was ever a time that I needed to learn how to live beyond my circumstances, that time would have been the past several days; imagine that….”satan get behind me”.

Hopefully you all did your homework.  If not, I encourage you to stop right now and do it.  The key to finding JOY is waiting for you in the pages of Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  

It will be important for you to set firmly in your own mind exactly what joy means to you, otherwise, how will you know when you get there?  

As I thought about that question, I realized that for me, it means life without conflict.  No stress, no mess.  Of course, that’s unrealistic and unattainable, at least in this life.  Clearly, such an idea of joy  means that I have much to learn about living beyond my circumstances!  So what can get me to that true state of joy that I long for?  That’s the question I want to answer for myself as we go through this study together.  (That statement seems odd since I authored the study, but isn’t that how God’s word works?  As we commit ourselves to learning and growing in His ways, we quickly find that there is always something new to discover).

How about you?  Have you identified for yourself what JOY means?  If so, I hope you will encourage others by sharing it here.

So glad you’re here,

Sandra

Note:  I’ve heard from some of you that you can study better from the lesson if its on paper, rather than sitting in front of your computer – me too!  I’ve added the ability for you to print out the study – just click on the printer icon at the bottom of each page.  Once the print screen opens, you will have options of how you want to print the pages.

Let’s not loose another minute, click here to  “CHOOSE JOY”

Follow “Morning Moments” to receive an email each time a new post is added so that you won’t miss a single word of“Choose Joy”  and while you’re at it, why not invite a friend or two – I bet they could use some JOY as well.