On Joy

I'm learning joy. I'm learning joy has to be learned.

Cultivated. Joy must be cultivated. And I wonder how I never knew this before, how it escaped me.

My fundamentalist background mandated that I should be "joyful always". And "joy" was a "should" that I always struggled with, because Depression and I have wrestled much of my adult life. As much as I wanted to dance with joy I wore cement boots. No one had good answers for that.

I'm good at martyrdom, and self-sacrifice. Co-dependence even? Eeesh, I hope I have outgrown that, but this is true:

I have not tilled the soil in my heart to make ready for joy. I have not scattered the types of seeds that could germinate into this joy-life that the Bible says is possible. I didn't know I could, or that I should, or how to even go about it.

I am a novice gardener, this is my first go at deliberately cultivating a joy-filled life., but here is what I am learning:

First, uproot the weeds.

-Joy isn't hedonistic.
-Experiencing joy isn't selfish.
-Value isn't determined by productivity.
-Comparison is a thief that steals joy. It must STOP!
-Hope in anything I can lose, is no hope at all.

Then cultivate a life where joy can grow:

-Develop the deliberate and intentional discipline of gratitude. For everything. In everything.
-Create beauty. See beauty. Hunt for it.
-Rest. Do the Sabbath. Every month, every week, every day I am responsible for carving out room for my soul to breathe, and be fed. I am responsible. I am not the passive victim to which life has happened. If life is mundane, and ugly I need to look carefully to see if I have made it so, or allowed it to be so.
-Long obedience demands that I carefully nurture my heart.
-Become a worshiper - not just on Sundays.
--I cannot offer life out of a vacuum. If I want to care for others, I need to run to the one who can fill my life with joy.
-The metric for success must be carefully aligned with true greatness. The first world has a very distorted view of greatness.
-Become okay with slow. What feels slow to me is probably just about right for my crew.
-Work hard. Choose to do it with a cheerful heart.
-Live out who God has made me to be.