Rekindle Childhood Joy

Photo byS&B VonlanthenonUnsplash

Awake each morning full of joy to experience another day. God is joy and I have experienced this joy so undeservedly, but have not yet returned to my childhood exuberance at which I would leap from bed, eager to live and play and love and experience all that the world offers. Jesus counsels us to come to God as little children. I desire to embrace this littleness once more, the wonder at creation and all its gifts, the joy at living.

This world is a place of suffering. We must go through the suffering without attaching so we can come through it intact and ready to again accept consolations from our Creator. If one is going through hell on earth, keep moving, so as to get through it to the other side. May we all have hope that there is another side. May we extend a hand that brings another to the other side. May we be another’s aid to reach heaven while on earth.

God wants us to live a life of joy. He wants us to experience a life of joy in this world he created. Appreciate the world and all its beauty. Appreciate and love your fellow man, co-inhabitors of this world of beauty.

If one is inhibiting another from experiencing joy, he or she also inhibits oneself. However, if you introduce the experience of joy to another, you bring joy into your own life. Draw close to God to experience the greatest joy.

At times, I have felt the religious life to be a straitjacket, constricting, confined, and rigid – a shroud of shoulds. How do I reconcile this with the experience of joy? One feels constrained when disciplining self. The reason one disciplines self is to achieve self-mastery and to thus evolve the soul. It calls for a shift in perspective. Instead of thinking one is being controlled, rephrase the thought in terms of growing into union with the Eternal through a choice to master one's self.

God is not only life-affirming, but expansive, so expansive one cannot imagine, and on top of this the greatest joy unimaginable. So, when one is restricting self from pleasure seeking and feeling controlled, change the mind and think in terms of the Eternal and expansive joy. Seek joy and all else will be added.