Find Your Joy

Today was a highly emotional day for me. Really my emotions have run high the past couple days. ****TMI ALERT**** Skip to the next paragraph if you wish....
I guess I still get PMS without the M *shrug*.

I was fine until I got to church. I dropped and broke the spine of the bible my kids and I bought my Dad one year. That upset me a little, but I picked it up and kept going. I get in and I get seated and comfortable and I speak to my cousin who I sat next to. The Praise and Worship team is up front and I glance to the other side of my cousin and see her sister, who actually belongs to another church. As the service goes on, oblivious to my surroundings before, I realize that I'm sitting in the midst of all the siblings but one, some of who live out of town.

I realize later that they are dedicating the remodeled restrooms in my Aunt's name. I'm snapping pictures and I can't wait til church is over so I can go to my Dad's and show them to him.....

Except he's gone. I don't know if I was upset because he's gone, because I momentarily forgot or both. Man I miss my Dad! It's been almost 9 months since he left this earth...

Ironically, the message today was how to walk in the joy of the Holy Spirit. I needed to find my joy. Oh how I needed to find it.

The scripture lesson was Matthew 6:25-33 (NRSV)

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Rev. Freeman said that to walk in the joy, you must do these 4 things...

1. Pray

2. Know the word of God (you know through studying)

3. Find a spiritual partner-someone who you can pray with and can lift you up when you're going through something.

4. Shut your mouth. There is power in your words and the moment you give in to complaining, the devil will use your words against you.

He said that if you feel like you just aren't getting anywhere, like you don't have anything, it's because you have not been a good steward over the things that God has already given you. If your goal in life is to keep up with the Joneses and live outside your means, you'll never get ahead. Be your own Jones.

You will find your joy right where you are.