Find Joy: A Journey To Unshakeable Wonder In An Uncertain World Sample

Have you ever woken up with a praise song on your lips or in your heart? Maybe it’s stuck in your head from the radio or from church. Or maybe you’ve never woken up praising God, but would love to. A minister friend says that when we become believers, our spirit becomes alive. Our spirit is constantly in tune with God and constantly worshiping Him. What a beautiful image! 

The bedrock of joy is coming to grips, in the deepest parts of our being, with God’s goodness, majesty, power, and love. 

Imagine for a minute the magnitude of worship in front of the throne of God, worship so overwhelmingly glorious that it shakes the throne room. I once stood in a stadium of 50,000 people all singing hymns together to God as the very walls echoed and shook with the sound. It was so powerful, I spent most of the time in tears of joy! And that is but a tiny, poor echo of what it must be like when the angelic host sings “Holy, Holy, Holy” in the presence of our God. 

The angels have a front-row seat to His holiness—and cannot help but worship. It is one thing to cry out about how mighty and strong and powerful a king is. It is quite another to worship Him. That means that this awe-inspiring God is not only mighty and glorious: He is GOOD. He is worthy of their worship—and ours. 

It’s easy to get sidetracked from worship. We get caught up in the chaos of life. Or we allow our moods to change based on how we feel at the moment. Or we get annoyed or sad when we don’t get the attention or love of others. 

But our eyes are meant to be constantly gazing upon the King. How often we forget that we were created to focus our attention on and worship our God. He deserves it, and we receive joy from giving it! If the first thing we think when we wake up in the morning is our to-do list, or if we even feel dread or apathy at the day ahead of us, maybe we need to get our spirit back in sync with our heavenly Father. Let’s take a lesson from the angels and gratefully whisper (or sing or shout) our “Holy, Holy, Holy” to the Lord Almighty as soon as we open our eyes. By doing so, we can believe with our whole heart and spirit that the joy of the Lord will be ours. We get to worship a God who is worthy of nothing less than our total and utter awe.

Reflect 

What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Check your phone? Pray? Sing? Grumble? 

Take a few minutes now to pause, close your eyes, and sing or hum whatever praise song or hymn comes to mind. 

How might doing that first thing when you wake up (even if it is in a whisper, so you don’t wake others up!) help you connect more with God?