CHOOSE CHEER
Today is a good day to rejoice!!
REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS, AND AGAIN I SAY, REJOICE!!
I have a JOY in my heart today, for God has never ceased to be sooooo good. Even though the stress of life continues to press and we are constantly casting every care on the Lord, we CHOOSE JOY.
To begin, I’ll share a poem the Lord gave me not long back:
The Lord gave me a poem
I want to share with you
So let it all sink in
So you can follow through
Choose JOY in every way
No matter what, in every day
Find ways to just have fun
Never giving in to the grump
Put a smile on that face
A thankful song in your heart
Put a dance in your step
Though it's been a long-lost art
Your kids will be so blessed
For a change in the atmosphere
Your husband will join in, too
And bad feelings will disappear
Your thoughts are the way
For peace and joy to begin anew
Thinking on God’s goodness
Will bring you a breakthrough
A healing will begin
Your body will feel better as well
Your husband will be relieved
For at pitiful sadness he was repelled
You’ll find he is attracted
To your merry, lively heart
A wife who is happy
Gives him a vital jump start
More strength and energy
Of that, you’ll be aware
For you’ve tapped into a well
You didn’t know was there
Once that river’s flowing
In everything rejoice
For gladness to be a ‘growing
Kindly continue to make that choice
Taking some time to remember all God has done for our marriage and family, I can’t help but rejoice! God has done one fun thing after another, one miracle after another, one victory after another…… and, yes, we’ve had one challenge after another…
So how can we still choose joy in the midst of challenges, hardship, trial of faith, tests of love, and the devil’s junk? It has to do with what we are believing TO SEE in the middle of every trouble.
Through it all, we never stopped believing in God’s goodness. We never stopped expecting to see His goodness show up in our lives. This is how I learned about faith—that living by faith doesn’t mean I’m exempt from problems, obstacles, and challenges. Living by faith ensures victory and influences the way I get through these challenges. What helped us get through every problem and issue? The expectation that we would see God’s goodness all the way through, in every step, to the other side. Proverbs 10:28 says the expectations of the righteous person results in JOY. JOY is evidence there’s real faith in God in our heart. And this expectation of God’s goodness has kept us in JOY. The joy of the Lord. The joy of our faith. It has to do with what you are expecting, what you are believing to see.
The Psalmist spells it out ever so beautifully:
I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13, KJV)
Unless! Unless!! Unless!! He didn’t faint! He didn’t lose hope! He didn’t give up! Because he believed!
What has kept Matt and I from fainting, giving up, or losing heart, time and time again? What has kept us from losing our joy, time and time again? We had and still have a confident expectation of something: we are expecting in faith to see God’s goodness around every corner. REAL JOY comes from believing in God’s goodness.
Now I will say, though we didn’t outright lose our joy, sometimes we would leave it behind us and have to stop and say, “What happened to the joy?” and go back and grab it. Ha.
We know the joy of the Lord is our strength, making it also the strength of our marriage. God has given each of us “everLASTing joy.” This same everlasting joy is the way your marriage will LAST.
As believers, we are told to “count it all joy” when we find ourselves in the middle of challenges. You see, joy is evidence there’s real faith in our heart. Look at what Paul said about this:
I am overflowing with joy in spite of all our trouble. (2 Cor. 7:4, AMP)
I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. (2 Cor. 7:4, NKJV)
This word “tribulation” here, if you study it out, it gives the idea there is pressure. Ever had some pressure in your marriage? Something pushing you down and pressing against you and your relationship? Just because pressure is coming against you doesn’t mean you have to let it in you. Like Paul, as seen in this verse, we are able to overflow with exceeding joy in the midst of marital challenges.
Or maybe you’ve been like I was this week, where loads and loads of stress and pressure is coming against you in areas outside of your marriage, like from work (or extended family, finances, or bodily ailment). For me, after a few days of this, where I wasn’t handling it correctly by casting it once and for all on the Lord, it began to also cause some pressure in my marriage. I am so thankful for a husband who quickly recognized it, and instead of getting upset with me, had enough perspective to help me see what was happening, and then help me get the victory. This is what good husbands are for sometimes – they can take our pressure and pass it on to the Lord in times when we don’t feel strong enough. No, I don’t think that should become our habit, but there have been many, many times when I felt like giving up and throwing in the towel because of a hard day at work, and Matt would grab me and wrap his big arms around me, and tell me, “Just pass it on to me and I’ll throw it off on the Lord.” I was so thankful for that this week.
On the flip side, I’ve definitely had to do my part in keeping the joy in our marriage, as well. It didn’t take me long, maybe a few weeks after our wedding, to realize Matt was a bonafide night owl. At that time especially, mornings were not his thing—however, our schedule was such (and always has been, LOL) that we still had to get up in the morning. Ha! By the second month of marriage, I knew I was gonna have to help him in this area. Because I was a true morning bird, I couldn’t relate for the longest time with his morning habits.... But instead of letting it bother me, thankfully, I was oftentimes successful in choosing FUN over GRUMP.
One morning, instead of getting frustrated, I yielded to joy and child-like goofiness by introducing “Silly Songs with Jessi.” Let me interject here: For as long as I can remember we have made up the silliest songs about the silliest stuff. We recently changed the words to a famous tune and made it all about our cat, and every time we sing it we just can’t stop cracking up. It’s so silly, and the words are so silly, but who cares, if it gets you laughing, right?
Okay, back to my story….
On this particular morning, I made up a dorky breakfast song with these hilarious hand motions where I would come to his side of the bed—while he’s ever so desperately trying to wake up—and begin singing in a funny tune, along with my over-the-top arm and leg movements, asking him what he wants for breakfast. Just imagine me singing these words in a goofy sing-song rap, DJ style: “Do you want some eggs? Do you want some SPAM 'n EGGS WITH RICE?! Do you want some baaaay-cuuuun? Do you want some PANCAKES?! Do you want some fruit-with-yogurt? Do you want some WAFFLES?!” And then I would basically mention any other breakfast item, with the craziest dance moves and vocal intonations I could come up with. And EVERY time, never fail, I could always get him to laugh. (And yes, he likes spam.)
Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing. Then they said… “The Lord has done great things for them.” (Ps. 126:2, NKJV)
COUPLES WHO LAUGH TOGETHER LAST TOGETHER.
Looking back and recounting God’s faithfulness through every challenge, through everything we’ve overcome, I can honestly say we never lost our laugh, we never lost our fun-loving silliness, and we never lost our joy. We both always endeavored to keep things light-hearted and fun—especially Matt. He exceeded me in this. Even in the middle of dire financial troubles, even at times when neither of us were being good spouses, and even in the midst of parenting issues and disagreements, we still kept our joy. Yes, we got angry, we got upset and had many a bad moment, but we always made sure to return to joy and MERRYMAKING. If I was upset, Matt would start doing the chicken dance in the middle of the kitchen, even if he was the one who had made me upset. If he was upset, I would try to do something crazy and funny—anything to keep up the good cheer. In doing this, we discovered the healing power and energy of JOY:
A merry heart does good, like medicine... (Prov. 17:22, NKJV)
A joyful, cheerful heart brings healing to both body and soul. (Prov. 17:22, TPT)
I know for a fact that being silly, having fun, trying to make each other laugh, and singing and dancing is what kept us strong so many times—strong in our marriage, strong in our bodies, strong in our souls. The ability to show and feel real joy and cheerfulness does not come from the favorable circumstances around us—real joy comes from God. As long as we have God in our lives, we’ll always be able to choose joy and keep a merry heart.
Not saying I never yielded to the wrong thing and ended up wasting days here and there on frustrations, but I’m really thankful for all the days I chose CHEER OVER DREAR. The breakfast song is just one example of when I allowed my merry, cheerful heart to do my marriage good, like a healing ointment, or an oil.
The Bible says we’ve all been given “the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3). Another place says God has turned our mourning into DANCING and has clothed us with GLADNESS (Psalm 30:11). He’s given us joy INSTEAD OF sadness. He has given us an actual garment. BUT, this joy He has given doesn’t come on us automatically. In order to enjoy this garment of praise and this clothing of GLADNESS, we’ve actually got to PUT IT ON.
We can’t leave it hanging in our “closet,” waiting until we begin to “feel” glad before we put it on. Would you stay outside in the cold, refusing to put on your warm coat because you don’t “feel” warm yet? No. You put on the warmth before you actually feel the warmth. The feeling of warmth comes after you put on the coat. In the same way, you won’t feel the joy and gladness until you PUT IT ON.
The oil of joy has nothing to do with feelings, circumstances, how your finances look or how you feel that morning. You are gonna see this joy the most in times when you feel the worse and it looks the worse. This is when the spirit of joy shines the brightest.
JOY IS A SPIRITUAL POWER—it’s a fruit directly from the spirit—something that is produced spiritually, not emotionally or physically. Joy is deep-rooted (not surface) happiness that ends up causing a change on the surface.
What if you are going through some hard circumstances in your marriage, or just in life, period? How does this help you get through? Jesus gave us the perfect example:
…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb.12:2, NKJV)
How did Jesus endure the agony of the Cross? How did He make it thru Hell and the grave, hardships we’ve never had to go thru and will never come close? It was because He had a JOY set before Him. He was looking at something else other than His present circumstances. What was this joy He was looking at?
US. We were the joy that was set before Him. Like the verse earlier from King David, Jesus didn’t faint because He also was believing to see God’s goodness.
He kept focusing on us which brought Him so much joy that He was propelled through the hardships of the Cross (and all that came with that experience) and to the other side victoriously, knowing we could then be with Him forever. And that joy gave Him the strength to endure all of it. Jesus went before us to show us how to make it through hardship, how to endure pressure and problems—revealing that it has to do with what we’re looking at.
Like Jesus, we need a JOY set before us. This is where your faith comes in. This is when you choose to see the unseen—looking past present circumstances and seeing your marriage full of God’s goodness—seeing you and your husband moving together like a well-oiled machine, with no hitches, no hiccups, no disagreements. See this victory before you!!
Joy is a spiritual energy that comes from believing in God’s goodness for you. What is the joy that kept Matt and I going, and still keeps us going today? It’s the deep-rooted knowing that because we love God and we know He loves us, we can believe in His goodness towards us and we know things will only get better. With God, good things are always ahead and no matter what it looks like in the moment, the path of the just gets brighter and brighter! The more you become aware of God’s goodness in your life, the more joy you will experience. Joy is LIVING! And it keeps your marriage alive and kickin’.
With your merry heart, you can bring health, happiness, vigor and vitality back into your marriage. Just because we feel heavy or depressed doesn’t mean we act heavy or depressed. We resist those feelings and yield to joy instead. We tell that heaviness, grumpiness, and depression to leave and we put on a garment of praise and gladness. We put a song on our mouth and a dance in our legs. We find ways to keep joyfulness and laughter overflowing in our home— not only will it minister life to your kids, but you will begin to see healing and energy flowing back into your marriage, as well.
For I have derived great joy and comfort and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints [who are your fellow Christians] have been cheered and refreshed through you, [my] brother. (Phil. 1:7, AMPC)
A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance… (Prov. 15:13, NKJV)
Let’s be this cheer of refreshment for our husbands and our children. Let’s be willing to get goofy and have fun. Be willing to throw out all reservations and see how free you can be.
Try walking like a kookamonga thru Walmart, or pulling up “epic fails” on YouTube, or… let me say it like our bestest friends once said in our anniversary card one year:
" 'Laugh-cries' are very necessary in a healthy relationship, even if it means making up silly games like 'Gwanga Bird' and 'Matt-Coaster.' "
Anything to make him laugh, and YOU! Anything to bring in some joy!
Proverbs 15:15 says a cheerful heart has a merry feast, and let me tell you, WE COULD ALL USE A MERRY FEAST these days.
Cheer over drear,
Jessica