are you happy?

I got inspiration for this post from my friend Steve Ewing’s blog, you can read that post here. It’s a great blog because I believe it’s part of his heart, just like this blog is a part of mine. The two blogs are very different, but everyday I read his and I’m deeply impacted. Sometimes it makes me laugh, it challenges me, it makes me think, and it touches my heart. Plus the dude can really rhyme.

To me, being happy is a choice, but it’s not always an easy choice. In fact it’s often a hard choice to make, and one that I often fail at. So many factors effect our happiness. Our relationships, our health, our career, our social status, our finances, our schedule, our school, and anything else you can possibly think of. If all of those things are going great, then most likely we will be very happy. But for a lot of people, they have a lot of crap in their life. They have to deal with things that we have no idea how to relate to. And we have things in our life that others don’t understand. Steve talks I think half jokingly about people thinking he’s 18, but actually he’s 26. Next week I’ll be 24. There’s nothing I want more than to be in love with a beautiful girl, to be married and to be a daddy to my boys or girls. But instead I’m stuck on a vent and in a wheelchair, and for now I still have a disease that cripples my body. That’s not fun nor does it make me happy. I know I’m not the only one, we all would probably change something about our lives. I’m not usually happy about my life.

But I do always have joy. The joy of my Father that overcomes all things. Please know that when I write this it is often real to me. Many times it might seem like the cliche Christian answer. “Don’t worry brother, God is good and He is with you.” But the truth is, HE IS!!! The biggest choice in life that we will ever make is, do we want to know God or do we not? I’m not talking about knowing about Him, but do we know Him intimately? As a person, as our Father, as our savior, healer, deliverer, friend and as our lover? Do you want to? Some people say God is good to make themselves feel better, others say it because they know it from the depths of their soul. I’m not a person that is all knowing or perfect, but I do know God. And my relationship with Him is constantly growing when I allow it to. The more and more I get to know Him, the more I see how much value He has for joy. He is a Father full of joy, and He wants to abundantly pour it upon His children. I think having joy and being happy are two different things. You can be happy and not have joy, but it’s impossible to have joy and not be happy. Meaning, when we have joy it engulfs everything that might steal our happiness. God just simply makes me happy. I am His son!!! He takes delight in me, He sings and dances and shouts His praises over me. As His son I have legal access to step into that and carry that with me. Having a “lifelong” (by the standards of unbelievers) disease, one of my greatest weapons is the joy of my Father. And even people without disease, joy is still critical. Beni Johnson teaches she lives in a constant state of joy. When she prays it must be from a place of joy, it gives us the mindset of victory. That’s what I want. I want to always live in joy. We cannot yield to our circumstances. But when we yield to our Father, to His joy, our circumstances will bow to Him. Joy gives me strength. It gives me strength to persevere and to pursue my dreams. The dream of walking and falling in love with my future wife.

Father fill us with your joy!!!