"Recovering Your Joy" in American Sign LanguageSample

Finding Your Lost Joy
By Rick Warren

“The Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17 NLT)

What’s the easiest thing for you to lose? Your glasses? Your keys? Your mind?

The easiest thing of all to lose is your joy. You can lose it with one phone call or email, a letter or conversation. You can watch a commercial on TV and lose your joy. It’s the easiest thing in the world to lose. And a lot of people in a lot of circumstances are conspiring to rob it from you.

When God’s children aren’t filled with joy, it makes God look bad. Cranky Christians are a bad witness. They look like they’ve been baptized in vinegar because they’re never really smiling. And that makes God look bad.

Why? Because God wants us to be witnesses with our countenance.

The Bible tells us that the Christian life can be summed up in three words: goodness, peace, and joy. Romans 14:17 says, “The Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (NLT).

The reality is, though, that you can lose your joy so quickly, and there are thousands of ways to lose it. There are thousands of killjoys in life that will rob you of your joy, even to the point that somebody like Jeremiah, a prophet of God, could say this in Lamentations 5:15, “There is no joy left in our hearts” (GW).

I don’t know if that’s where you are today, but if you’ve ever gone through that period where you feel like you’ve lost the spark and you’re not as close to God as you used to be and you’re just going through the motions of life, you need to know that it’s quite easy to get your joy back, too.

So, how do you get your joy back?

The first step you need to do is admit you’ve lost it.

You simply look at your past and ask yourself a couple of questions: Has there ever been a time in your life when you were closer to God than you are right now? Has there ever been a time in your life when you were more joyful in the Lord than you are right now?

Now is the time to make the change. But you’ve got to start by admitting that you’ve lost what you’ve had in the past. You could ask God about it; he’s waiting to help you. David prayed this in Psalm 51:12: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (NIV).

Talk It Over

Think of a time when you were more joyful in the Lord. What was different then about your spiritual walk and quiet time?

What are the things that rob you of your joy? Do those things change anything about God? Should they change anything about how much you love him and trust him?