Cultivating Joy

Joy comes from your spirit. The Bible lets us know that it is a manifestation of the fruit of the recreated human spirit. Cultivating joy is the same as cultivating the fruit of your spirit. Cultivating essentially means tending to that which is receiving attention

Joy is maintained by thanksgiving. When you give thanks you give no room for dissatisfaction and complaints from your spirit. Thus a nature of thanksgiving is essential for the cultivation of joy. Joy is expressed In thanksgiving.

David encouraged himself in the Lord when his family and those of his men were taken captive by the Amalekites and his men were so grieved they wanted to stone him. They blamed David tremendously for their losses so much they wanted to punish him.

Encouraging yourself in the Lord by singing hymns and psalms of worship with thanksgiving is an effective way of cultivating joy in adverse circumstances. What you are singing becomes the entire focus of your attention making the condition of your spirit the driving force of your response to your environment.

God inhabits the praises of His people. Joy comes from the spirit. This makes joy your strongest connection to God. Joy can persist through challenges where happiness may not. This tells us happiness is dependent on your senses.

To bring in the manifested presence of God begin to sing praises to God. The more you sing praises to God the greater the joy that is brought into your situation.

Cultivate joy by increasing the praise you give to God regardless of circumstances. God lives in the praises of His people. When in challenges all that come from you is praise your adversaries are confounded.

•  Thoughts for the day

Patience is not the ability to wait, but to wait with a joyful, thankful and anticipatory spirit, knowing that your request is granted. Cultivating joy comes with patience.

About The Author

Zoe

Zoe met Eze (Chuck) in the 14th year of what turned out to be an 18 year ‘journey’ with mental illness. They got married less than a year of meeting with Zoe fully knowing Chuck had a diagnosis of mental illness. In the 18th year, Chuck defied the odds of mental illness. A consultant psychiatrist signed him off the mental health system with a bill of NO MENTAL ILLNESS. The consultant was so amazed by Chuck’s astonishing recovery that he even questioned how Chuck was diagnosed with mental illness all those years before, in the first place! Today Chuck is free from medication, its dependency and hospitalizations. Zoe’s award nominated book, DEFYING THE ODDS, chronicles the highs and ‘lows’ of this journey. Zoe, often writing from the standpoint of a caregiver, clearly understands that mental illness does not only affect an individual challenged with the disease, but also families, marriages and society as a whole.

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