Build JOY into your Legacy
JOY. It’s a PILLAR in my life…well one I work at, but a goal none the less. The Bible talks about Joy over 200 times.
I want to raise Joy into my kids. Joy can be a natural proclivity in a personality but for some they have to choose it every day. However, We’ll never attain joy in our own strength.
Jesus Brings Joy! Nothing else can! My DAD is the most Jesus-like man I know!
It hit me last Christmas I was writing my message for our women’s event; the only verse my dad ever gave me (and he recited it to me during a really rough time in my young adult life) was:
James 1:2-3: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Without knowing it, my Dad had built joy into his life through reciting his life verse to himself, and then passed it down into me, and now I want to pass this onto my kids.
Just think; a mom-to-be DOESN’T touch her belly day dreaming of the day she will watch her grown child struggle with sadness and pain and even depression. NO! The greatest emotional and spiritual wish for your child would be that they are happy and fulfilled…..better yet, filled with joy.
3 John 1:4: I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
Joy is a bigger hope and goal for your kids than a wish for your kid’s future dream house, a financial inheritance, a big paycheck or their school loans to be paid off!
But maybe you have never really thought that passing down Joy is your responsibility to your kids. The hard truth is that if you don’t work at it, you won’t. It is much easier to pass down worry, fear, sadness, and anger.
Even when they are grown and out of the house, your are creating a legacy your children will inherit…positive or negative! I have personally known and prayed for too many older and long-time “church-going” parents whose grown children want nothing to do with God, and especially not with the church because they didn’t experience joy in their “Christian” home. Do we compartmentalize Sundays and church but not bring the joy of Jesus into our home?
Find your Joy in Jesus and then it will be attractive to everyone especially your kids. I believe JOY can combat the nagging of a mother-in-law, the pickiness of a mother, the critical eye of a father or the comparison of a friend. Focus on and surround yourself with peaceful people and environments where joy is easier to attain and keep.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
But….Joy takes persistence. There are no shortcuts. There are no substitutes. Success is always a derivative of persistence.
In the book “Outliers”, Author Malcolm Gladwell explains that reaching the 10,000-Hour Rule, which he considers the key to success in any field, is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years. Or 10 hours per week for 20 years or 5 hours a week for 40 years.
For me, I want to become an “expert in joy”, but I sure don’t want it to take me 40 years….my poor family and friends would have to wait practically my whole adult life to see joy lived out consistently in me!!”
We may have had a legacy of anger passed down to us, or a legacy of depression and you expect that you will struggle with depression. Many people immediately call their sadness depression because they figure it “runs in the family”. But it doesn’t have to be that way and shouldn’t be that way with Jesus! Jesus can rewire our brain and make us new every morning….so starting fresh each morning.