In my last post I urged us to be winsome witnesses to others who are watching how we live our lives. Winsome: appealing, engaging, captivating. As opposed to judging, condemning, repelling.

In that post I gave us the first of 5 Life Attitudes that serves as a ​winsome witness: Be Grateful. ​You may want to read that if you haven’t already.

Each Life Attitude deserves time for thought and personal reflection. As you read each one, please consider the following brief prayer:

“Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.”
– Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV)

I will, too.

2. Choose Joy

 Joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness is an emotional reaction, almost involuntary, to pleasant circumstances. Joy is a voluntary choice to remain upbeat, open-minded, and thankful regardless of external circumstances. 

A few years ago, a few colleagues and I were invited to Burundi by a friend who discipled women there. It was the site, along with Rwanda, of one of the most awful genocides in history. 100,000 people were slaughtered…in the first 24 hours. Every woman we met had lost parents, husbands, or children butchered by their enemies, usually in front of their eyes.

Virtually all the women we listened to had been raped, repeatedly, but kept alive. So they might bear the offspring of their enemy. They wept as they told our team of horrors they survived. “We were garbage,” they cried.

Then their mentor asked them, “Can you still celebrate?”  It was as if someone had flipped a gigantic atmosphere switch! Immediately these women were transformed. Their faces radiated boundless joy as they danced and sang. “Yes, we once were garbage, now we are daughters of the King!!” I have never seen a more dramatic instantaneous turn of emotions in my life. 

Friends, like these amazing women, regardless of our current circumstances, we can choose to live with joy because we ultimately believe in the One who is sovereign and in charge. 

Whatever our circumstances, we can still claim the words of Job 8:21 “…He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”