What is joy? Well, we know that it is a fruit of the spirit (“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,” Galatians 5:22 KJV), but what is the definition? According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, joy is a state of happiness or felicity. While many of us believe that joy is solely a “feeling,” much similar to love, it is also a choice. Many of us are familiar with love being a choice, but do we acknowledge the same with joy? See, if joy was not a choice, The Most High would not declare it as something we are called to have.

Some days, we may be exhausted, want to do everything but go to work, or just drained from events in our lives. However, that doesn’t excuse us from having joy. When our spirit is grieved, it is easy for us to choose sadness/depression. Now we know that for everything, there is a season (Ecclesiastes 3), and we also know that there are many accounts in the Bible where someone passed away, and Israel grieved them. However, generally speaking, we should be a joyous people. But how do we choose joy? We choose joy by shifting our perspective. Instead of despising the fact we have to go to work, we rejoice because God has provided us with employment to pay our bills, travel, purchase food & clothes, etc. Instead of cursing because someone cut us off while driving, we rejoice because we could’ve gotten into an accident, but we didn’t. Instead of being upset that we have to workout, be grateful that we have healthy bodies & we can even choose whether or not to exercise. See, while finding the silver lining can be the last thing we want to do and even be grievous to our flesh, in order to uphold joy, sometimes we need to do it. So, as we go through our day, let us all remember to choose joy. It’s so easy to complain or give in to our flesh emotionally; however, that may look, it’s so much more important for us to operate in the Holy Spirit.