Gò0dNews for Everyone
Choose Joy
A
by Suzanne Hooie
re you happy? Joyful? Joy and happiness are
hospitals for epilepsy treatment and surgeries. I have
very different things. Happiness is based on our
found that, instead of just sitting at her bedside focused
circumstances, while joy is an inner happiness
on our problems, if I turn my attention to others, it
not dependent on our circumstances. The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 5:22-23 that
brings me joy. I ask God to put someone in our path that day whom
joy is one of the fruits of the spirit, a true gift from God.
I can encourage or share my faith with. I cannot tell
James 1:2 states, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and
you how many times and ways that God has answered
sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James tells us to just “choose joy.” Is it that easy, though? We can’t control the circumstances in our lives, but we can control how we react to those circumstances. We can choose joy or we can choose to be bitter—the choice really is ours. I read an acrostic about JOY years ago that resonated with me. The J stands for Jesus, O for others, and Y for yourself. The premise for the prescription to find true joy is that we put Jesus first, others next, and ourselves last.
that prayer. Sometimes it’s a nurse, healthcare worker,
J—Jesus
or fellow exhausted parent at the coffee shop. It can
O—Others
be a simple word of encouragement or a more serious
Y—Yourself
conversation about how my faith has helped get me
Our lives have a balance to them when we put Jesus
through tough times. Something shifts when I take the
first. It’s so easy for me to get my priorities all mixed up,
focus off myself and move it to someone else. It gives me
and that’s usually how my world feels too: all mixed up.
perspective and a great amount of joy.
When I have Jesus at the center of my life, everything else just seems to fall into place. When we turn our time and attention to others, it
So I encourage you to choose joy today! I also want to encourage you to ask God to put someone in your path today who needs a little joy.
has spent significant amounts of time in various
46 // November 2020
About The Author
shifts the focus from our own problems. My daughter Suzanne Hooie serves as the minister of missions and community at the First Baptist Church of Dalton. Suzanne and her husband, Sherrel, have two grown children, John and Lauren.
