Choose Joy

In life, there will be people who will just always seem to be against you. 

It won't matter what you do -  it will be wrong. 

It won't matter what you say - it will be wrong. 

You won't be enough. 

You will be too much. 

Your intentions will be misunderstood. 

Your explanations will be invalidated. 

The list goes on and on. 

It can be so discouraging..... if you let it. 

Tonight I was able to take part in a wonderful Bible study and it was such a great reminder to me of how we are in control of how we choose to react to the different circumstances of our life - both good and bad. 

We can stay humble. 

We can stay kind. 

We can continue to take joy despite our circumstances. 

It isn't always easy and sometimes it takes work but God gives us so many examples in the Bible to provide us the encouragement we need to press on. 

Tonight our study was on Philippians. 

I want to pull out two specific verses:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. - Philippians 1:6

- AND - 

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. - Philippians 1:7

Philippians 1:6 is very special to me personally. Nearly eleven years ago it became one of my life verses. I went in for my 6th chemo treatment hoping and praying that it would be my last only to find out that I would need to have 6 more treatments for a total of 12 - discouraging news as you can imagine. 

One of our pastors came in and shared that scripture with me. Basically, it meant that it didn't matter how my cancer journey ended, Jesus was still doing a work in me and He would keep doing a work on me until the day I met Him. 

Tonight God added to that by giving me the next part of that scripture....

Paul is actually writing this letter of joy to the church in Philippi while he is in prison. Yes, you read that correctly.... a letter of JOY from PRISON. 

That makes my current circumstances look pretty small. 

Clearly, Paul had some enemies. 

Clearly, people somewhere and somehow had an objection with his words and actions. 

Clearly, he was too much for some, not enough for others, he was misunderstood, and his explanations were invalidated... 

But... he didn't allow himself to become discouraged. He wrote this beautiful letter of joy to the church in Philippi providing encouragement to them. 

So tonight we have a choice, my friends... we can be like the world or we can be like Paul. We can let it get us down or we can continue to allow Jesus to use us to be that light in the world that the world so desperately needs. 

There will always be someone. 

But we get to choose. 

We get to choose joy.