You know every Monday morning at our housing company, CRF Affordable Housing, we have a conference call where all of our staff across the state of Indiana can call in and kind of give updates on things that are happening at each of the properties, share stories, and we’re able to share things with them as well. But, the way we have committed to start this call every Monday morning is that everyone shares a win; everyone shares something good that’s happened. Maybe at their property, within the context of their work, or even within their own family or something personal that’s happened. But I’ve noticed over the years that this does something to us psychologically; it forces us in a line of work that is all about problem solving. It forces us to think about something beautiful and something good that is happening, and it changes the nature and ton of the entire conversation. And I got to thinking about that recently in my personal life you know there are seasons of life that are heavier than others and even as we’ve been going through some things here with our work, in my personal life, the lack of joy that can easily overtake me is overwhelming. And being a leader in the marketplace, being a leader in business and entrepreneurial settings, there a lot of problems to solve, there’s a lot of problems to figure out, and we can get weighed down so often by the realities of the things we have to figure out that it can steal our joy. It can literally sap the joy out of our lives. And I remember sitting early one morning thinking “God, why am I lacking joy? If joy is one of the fruits of the spirit, shouldn’t we as believers have that gushing out of us?” And I think one of the things the Lord has taken me back to is that Monday morning conference call. That when we only think about the weight and the problems and the things that need to be resolved, we will easily loose our joy. But, when we think about who God is, what God has done, the beautiful things that are happening around us, and we learn to shift our minds towards thankfulness, thankfulness for Jesus first and foremost, thankfulness that we have been created in the image of God, thankfulness that God came for us when we could not get to him, we begin to look at the realities of our life through that type of lens. Then even in the cracks and cervices, we can find the beauty of Jesus. We can find the beauty of the Gospel and it brings joy back into our reality. So, I want to encourage you today if you are struggling with joy, try turning your heart toward something beautiful that’s happening in your life. Be thankful for it. Say it out loud. Say, “Lord I thank you for even the opportunity to have this problem that needs to be solved and resolved,” and watch your joy return.
