Be filled with my joy…

John 15:11 TLB.

If we allow it to, life can drain us of our joy and leave us feeling empty, dull and discontented. There are so many big stresses in life to deal with, but often we allow the small insignificant things to irritate us to the point of stress: like getting stuck in traffic, somebody giving us a wrong look, waiting in a slow moving queue, overcooking a meal, waiting for a phone to charge up, making an honest mistake…its so easy to lose perspective and over-react. This not how God wants us to live. The real problem is that we have unrealistic expectations.

If we want to experience the joy Jesus promised, lets 1/ Accept that sometimes we can get uptight because we have a fixed idea of how life should be. 2/ Acknowledge that our expectations themselves can cause a lot of our expectation can cause a lot of frustration. When we keep expecting things to always be a certain way and they are not, we will always be upset.

Rather than swimming against the tide, lets learn to flow with it. It will help life feel that bit more enjoyable. And not only that people will enjoy being around us more.

So what now? Why not give this idea a go today: do life without expectations for example, dont expect everybody to be friendly -then when some are you will be delighted. Don’t expect your day to be hassle free, when trouble comes, look up and say,” Thank you God for another chance to turn to you for strength and wisdom, and joy.”