I was reading Joyce Meyer’s Seven Things That Steal Your Joy: Religious Legalism; Complicating Simple Issues; Excessive Reasoning; Ungodly Anger; Jealousy and Envy: Habitual Discontentment. For every joy stealer, Meyer offers a joy keeper. But the bottom line is to affirm that God’s plan for you is to enjoy life to the fullest – all of life, everyday of your life.
The seven things that steal your happiness can be replaced by God’s truth and love and Meyer gives us these tips: (1) Remember that God made you exactly the way He wants you to be. Find out how to recognize the beautiful life God has planned especially for you. (2) Relax and let God guide you to the answers. Hear his voice cut through life’s confusion and you’ll learn to take time to smell the roses. (3) Know that you can rest in God because He is going to take care of you. Find out how to enjoy life right now while He is working on your problems. (4) Let God do his job in creating your future, while you follow His path through prayer and through listening to His words.
From letting go of unhealthy desires to simplifying the busy existence that carries you away from happiness, Joyce Meyer arms you with the Word of God to fight the seven things that steal your joy. Proverbs 17:22 says: A merry heart does good like a medicine.
Many of us are often confronted with unpleasant situations. Some people would like us to feel miserable by saying things that are not true about us. If we allow these unpleasant circumstances or allow others to make us feel miserable, we are allowing Satan to ruin our lives as he robs us of our joy.
I am learning to focus on my joy instead of my concern. Joy is one of the most powerful weapons we have against the devil. He has evil intentions to destroy our lives, but joy is a great source of strength that God has given us to interrupt Satan’s plan. Through joy we overcome problems the devil will tell us are impossible to overcome and do things people would never believe we could do. We can be defeated only if we lose our joy.
Psalm 37:8-9 tells us, “Cease from anger and forsake wrath; fret not yourself – it tends only to evildoing. For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait and hope and look for the Lord (in the end) shall inherit the earth”.
Jesus said, “the thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life and have it in abundance.” John 10:10
Isn’t it time to put joy in our hearts and live an abundant
life?