Joy is...

I'm linking up over at Lisa Jo Baker's blog for Five Minute Friday.  Each week we blog our hearts out for five minutes without editing ourselves and backtracking.  We link up over at Lisa Jo's place for community, encouragement, and blog love.  Please join us!  We'd love to hear your take on the word prompt.  Today's prompt is JOY.

I've been unsettled lately.  It's not a place I like to be, but it's where I am.  In the unsettling, I've found myself seeking Him, a deep need for more of Him.  For some reason, I'm stuck in Romans.  I'm finding myself in those words, in the depth of Paul's experience with Christ.  Praying the prayers that He prayed - May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.  Romans 15:13.  

I am pouring my heart out in prayer with these scriptures believing God that He can fill me with all joy and peace.  That He is faithful to His word to complete it.  I'm not in state of depression or being down, just unsettled.  I can't find a better word to describe it.  But, I'm hopeful in His promise to keep me at peace and fill me with His joy.  

Joy, God's joy in us, is not just a state of happiness, it's peace.  Joy is trusting God through all things, in all things.  Joy is the knowing that, even in the midst of sad things, God will bring you through.  Joy is being filled with His Spirit day after day, being met right where you are.  Joy is loving Jesus when we're up or down.  His love supplies our joy.

Friends, I pray this prayer for you, too.  That you would also be filled with joy and peace.  That God's hope would be abundant in your life.  If you, like me, are in an unsettled state, let's take this time together to seek Him.  Maybe He's readying us for something, or maybe He's just bringing us to a place of deeper trust in Him, in His word, and in His promise.

End.