JOY
(Jesus, Others, Yourself)
My 5-year-old granddaughter told me she knew all about “joy.”
I smiled as I thought about all the magazine articles I had recently read about how to find happiness, capture that elusive emotion. We adults so often get bogged down with the day-ti-day grind of living. Joy slips through our fingers when we aren’t looking. Like a fog around our ankles, joy melts away in the light of trouble.
The more we seek it, the harder joy is to find. Joy disappears like a child playing hide-and-seek.
I was eager for Em’s answer, but my adult heart remained skeptical. Of course, she knows about joy. She’s a little kid with no worries. She has wonderful parents to protect her and provide for her. How could she possibly not be a happy child? And what could she really know about joy?
“Joy stands for Jesus, others and Yourself,” she said.
Jesus, others, yourself…the priorities of life in the correct order. When you put your life into this order, joy fills you, clings to you, saturates you to overflowing.
A 3-ply cord is strong. A 3-legged stool stands firm. There is power in the trinity of Jesus, others, yourself. Jesus himself said, “Love the Lord, your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.”
Young as she is, Em has both wisdom and joy.
