Finding joy in your life is the most important step to learning how to heal and move on. Life is no big deal (to paraphrase an ad I once saw about marriage), it’s a lot of little daily ones. But my take on the point of all this, or the meaning of life, is something I said at the beginning of the show: Here are 40 simple ways I've come up with for accessing joy on a daily basis, with photos by my talented husband, Kiran Ramchandran. It is also the easiest but most critical component of taking care of yourself as you recover from loss. But as the joy withdrew from my life, I was unable to identify the cause within. In order for this to actually work, I created a little list to reference when it’s time for my daily dose of joy. “I delight to do Your will, O my God…” . Joy is what makes life beautiful. Every day, I have committed to doing at least one thing that brings me joy. The more we can fill our lives with joyous moments, the happier our lives will be. When Jesus was born, the angels announced “good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10). But this is not what God says here. Later that same day, I got offered a short-term job that still enabled me to incorporate my creative writing with little to no disruption to my joy. More Resources About Joy in the Bible. Answer: The joy of the Lord is the gladness of heart that comes from knowing God, abiding in Christ, and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) but can often seem elusive for Christians. I always interpreted it to mean: The joy that God puts inside me, the fruit of the Spirit: the joy I have. If the reason was not internal, it had to be external. He says the joy OF the Lord, the joy that God has, not the joy … It's what gets us through challenges and allows light in to illuminate the shadows. Let this powerful joy Bible study teach you how to discover joy–even during life's most challenging circumstances. Question: "What is the joy of the Lord?" Call upon His name, trust in His promises, and let these truths about joy in the Bible change your life today! It was accompanied by a story of dark times and bad feelings. That was the question I received. It took me years to understand what ‘The joy of the Lord is my strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) means. All who find Jesus know, with the shepherds of the nativity, the joy He brings. So many people have experienced such hard times in life, and it’s sometimes difficult to find the joy and happiness that we all deserve. Before delving in to how we can experience joy in the Christian life, we must first recognize that joy is not based on circumstances. It felt like some ridiculous life gamble and with absolutely no evidence to the contrary, I rolled the dice in blind faith and declined the job. As I was thinking about just such a thought two days ago, I began jotting down some of those things that make me feel good and add joy to my life. A man often bought oranges from an old lady. Jesus prayed that our joy … All the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind…” When you believe every toxic thought that runs through your mind, and when you insist on building your sense of self and your entire life based on those thoughts, you can’t help but feel lost. I found subtle fault with everyone around me, my wife, my kids, my career, my patients, my staff. Joy heals our wounds, inspires us to greatness, and fills our souls with goodness. I looked for other causes. The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father— the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do— “…who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2). After they were weighed, paid for and put in his bag, he would always pick one from his bag, peel it, put a segment in his mouth, complain it's sour and pass on the orange to the seller. 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