{"id":5186,"date":"2014-07-25T00:33:30","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T00:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=5186"},"modified":"2014-07-31T13:32:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T13:32:47","slug":"the-power-of-joy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=5186","title":{"rendered":"The power of joy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most unsung pieces of artillery in the war chest provided to us by God is joy and\u00a0good humor. In my life, I have experienced the good humor of joy pull me out of quite a few downward spirals. You see, I naturally lean toward the melancholic end of the personality spectrum, and it\u2019s <em>because<\/em> of those tendencies that I have to constantly remind myself when the going gets tough to stop fretting and put joy into practice. And I\u2019m here to testify as a natural-born brooder and agonizer: I have found purposeful joy to be extremely effective against the schemes of the enemy, and it is one of my best go-to weapons of warfare when it comes to my own moods, feelings, and anxieties. It works\u2014that&#8217;s why I use it!<\/p>\n<p>As with every good thing we receive from God, Satan has devised a clever counterfeit for true humor and joy. Although I&#8217;m not addressing joy&#8217;s counterfeit here, suffice it to say that no one\u2014including the devil\u2014counterfeits worthless items. It is clear that joy and good humor are very\u00a0valuable when used in the right way.<\/p>\n<p>A much-quoted\u00a0Scripture declares at the end of Nehemiah 8:10, \u201c<em>The joy of the Lord is your strength<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How does this joy\u2014and its sidekick, good humor\u2014work to strengthen you? Well, first of all, let me state something upfront. I&#8217;m not referring to pretend &#8220;smiley-ness&#8221; and &#8220;praise the Lord-iness&#8221; that we can sometimes\u00a0hide behind to make others think\u00a0we&#8217;ve\u00a0got it all together. (I&#8217;ve been\u00a0guilty, too.) No; the joy of the Lord which releases the\u00a0strength\u00a0of God\u00a0is <em>confrontational<\/em> joy and humor\u2014not\u00a0exercised to impress\u00a0<em>others<\/em>\u2014but\u00a0exerted in confrontation against\u00a0the <em>enemy<\/em>\u2014and\u00a0against your <em>own<\/em> negativity, pain,\u00a0or depression.<\/p>\n<p>When you confront the devil with the joy of the Lord, he cannot stand against the strength that God imparts through it. Joy released during times of stress, pain, torment, or any other negative mindset or emotion empowers you to resist the devil, forcing him to flee from you.<\/p>\n<p>However, sometimes an even more formidable foe stands between you and the attainment of God&#8217;s promises\u2014you yourself. How can you operate in joy when your mind or emotions scream in agony against the universe\u2014or your neighbor\u2014or your boss\u2014or your body racked with pain? It\u2019s times like these when joy\u2014and more simply, humor\u2014can be among your most valuable assets.<\/p>\n<p>When I catch myself\u00a0becoming uptight and taking myself too seriously, I&#8217;ve learned that the quickest path out the inevitable downward spiral is through exercising the joy of the Lord and good humor. At first\u00a0I have to force myself to participate in the process, but as I do, true joy eventually takes over and\u00a0I am\u00a0strengthened and refreshed. Remember\u2014this is <em>confrontational<\/em> joy, and the target of this confrontation is <em>you<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I have exercised this purposeful form of\u00a0joy against my own negativity more times than I can count. Allow me to embarrass myself as I share some examples.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>During times of emotional overload in my twenties, I accidentally discovered that if I forced myself to look in the mirror when I was crying, I would end up laughing\u2014especially if I made faces at myself. As I laughed at myself in the mirror, I got tickled\u00a0by the absurdity of it all, and\u00a0stress and pain seemed to fade away. Then my trust in God would return along with real joy.\u00a0I challenge you to try this technique if you feel yourself sinking into self-pity. It has worked for me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Driving home after one of those days as an eighth-grade teacher when no one would listen and the paperwork piled as high as Mount Rushmore, the Spirit of God prompted me to smile. I did so for a second or two and then resumed complaining to Him. <em>No,<\/em> He urged; <em>keep smiling\u2014all the way home<\/em>. I felt like an idiot with a big fake grin plastered\u00a0to my face for the\u00a0next few minutes. But it wasn&#8217;t long until the power of those smile muscles started oozing sunshine down into my\u00a0whiny soul, and by the time I reached my driveway, I was laughing and rejoicing. Again, I have exercised this technique more than once since then. It\u2019s highly powerful when used against frustration, stress,\u00a0or an overall negative attitude; I guarantee that if you stick with it, you&#8217;ll end up smiling for real.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>At times\u00a0in bed\u00a0when pain attacked my body and I couldn&#8217;t sleep, I realized that I must have somehow stirred up a hornet&#8217;s nest by my life or prayers\u2014the physical symptoms were a clue to me that the enemy was not pleased. And somehow, the image of him irritated by my life in Christ tickled me, so I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. As I laughed big, hearty, belly laughs there in bed, pain-induced anxiety lifted and symptoms subsided. I laughed big laughs one night\u00a0not too long ago\u00a0at the pain which was immobilizing one of my hands\u2014and that pain simply drained out and vanished, and I fell asleep, a happy camper with a fully functioning hand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The joy of the Lord is your strength. As counter-intuitive as it may feel\u2014especially to a melancholic personality-type\u2014confronting yourself with joy and good humor when in the pit of despair, self-pity,\u00a0or pain\u00a0is <em>exactly <\/em>what the Great Physician ordered. And as you allow yourself to participate in\u00a0purposeful joy, you will find the negativity fade away, and in its place will be the strength which only comes when you exercise the joy of the Lord.<\/p>\n<p>May you be strengthened as you confront negativity with joy!<\/p>\n<p>Dorothy <\/p>\n<div style=\"position: absolute; overflow: hidden; width: 2px; height: 1px; left: -288; top: -277; z-index: 177;\">\n<div style=\"position: absolute; overflow: hidden; width: 2px; height: 1px; left: -288; top: -277; z-index: 177;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/vitalinq.best-slimmingpills.com\">actos vs metformin<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most unsung pieces of artillery in the war chest provided to us by God is joy and\u00a0good humor. In my life, I have experienced the good humor of joy pull me out of quite a few downward spirals. You see, I naturally lean toward the melancholic end of the personality spectrum, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-walk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5186"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5232,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186\/revisions\/5232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}