Joy...hmmm!

Have you ever thought about where Joy comes from? There's the standard answer that our kids are picking up quick in Sunday School..."Jesus"! I'm one of those ridiculously deep thinking people that ponders stuff like this while I'm...gardening. Actually, this is one my recurring ponders, it can pop up at almost anytime and hold me for great lengths of time. My kids will snap their fingers in my face sometimes and, "no use"!

Well, last week I was clearing out some beds in the front yard, and processing "joy". I haven't been too full of it recently--it seems. Joy is one of those elusive (sometimes) things we often mistake for happiness. Happiness usually comes from a beautiful day or from a good escape into something we enjoy...but joy seems to me, to come from some where else, some place deeper. I'm thinking it comes from obedience. From doing the right and sometimes hard thing. It's those acts of disciplined obedience. It's the deep satisfying feeling that comes from doing the right thing. From being really good about what you ate for a whole day or from seeing how relieved you are that you didn't say that thing you wanted to say. From knowing God is asking you to say "I'm sorry"...and doing it. When you've had a good day, or a hard, sweaty rough and used kind of day, but you feel the smile of God on your shoulder. When you do the things that feed the soul, you feed joy somehow as well.

That's what I'm thinking...What do you think? This is one of those things that matters in a home. Babies even know if moms' settled. Kids feel, even if they can't articulate it, "how we are". They 'catch' more than they are 'taught'. We're are telling them we want them to follow Jesus, and they need to see why...why, exactly is that a good thing. Does it work? Does it make life work. Joy is a pretty critical ingredient and I believe this is what the "LIGHT" is that the outside world sees -or doesn't.