Choose Joy by Kay WarrenSample

Day Seven

Your Spiritual Inheritance 

My friends, whatever you do, don’t miss joy. Don’t miss the reason for your existence.

But if you are going to experience joy in this lifetime, there’s only one possible way: You will have to choose it. You will have to choose it in spite of unbelievable circumstances. You will have to choose it even if your worst nightmare comes true. 

This isn’t what we want to hear. We want to believe that if get our act together, we finish the huge project, our health clears up, we get a raise, or we can just get things right, we can finally be joyful. 

But that’s just not how it works.

So ask yourself, What unchangeable circumstance stands in the way of me choosing joy? What fears for the future keep me from choosing joy? 

Spend a few minutes now in quietness and talk to God from your heart. You might say something like this: 

God, thank you for making joy my purpose in life. Thank you for Jesus Christ, whose life as both a man of sorrows and a man of joy gives me permission to seek a life of joy for myself. Thank you for your Holy Spirit, who graciously gave me the gift of joy as part of my spiritual inheritance, my birthright.

Today I choose to no longer look at people, places, positions, possessions, and my personality to find joy. I choose instead to find my joy in the only true source of joy: YOU! You are the only one who has soul-quenching springs of living water that will never leave me dry. 

I choose to nurture joy in myself and in the lives of those you have placed in my path. I choose to grow in the heart attitudes of grace, trust, balance, acceptance, positive thoughts of others, nonjudgmental love, empathy, and appreciation. 

I choose to live with a grateful heart, eyes wide open to see your goodness. I choose to develop a settled assurance that you are in control of all the details of my life. I choose to be quietly confident that ultimately everything will be all right. And I choose to praise you in all things, even the things I cannot understand. I trust you, God. 

I courageously choose joy, because happiness will never be enough. 

I choose joy!