I Choose JOY!

By Carl Kimbro, Fellowship Bible Church Devotional Team, 8/22/2018

In my recovery, I have had moments of frustration and sin where it feels like recovery is impossible. Sin keeps rearing its ugly head. No matter what “I do” things don’t go well.  The frustration turns to sorrow and feeling sorry for myself.  It’s at that point that I want to wallow in my sorrow and isolate myself from others.  Of all the struggles I experience in recovery, sorrow and sadness are usually the hardest to deal with. This black cloud drops like a curtain and covers me up. All I want to do is hide until the feeling goes away.
God created us with emotions, and sorrow is one of them. But God also created other emotions like joy and peace. In our moments of sorrow, joy and peace seem out of reach. However, God provides a solution as well.

When sorrow invades our lives, God is there as our comforter. Matthew 5:4 says
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”.  

 The mourning here is the mourning we go through when we acknowledge our own sins. It brings sorrow and repentance when we admit our sins to ourselves, to others and to God. The comforting we receive in this process is the “heart knowledge” that God forgives us. We receive restored purity and freedom from God.  God uses our repentance to remind us that Jesus died for our sins, we are forgiven. Our confession restores our relationship with Him. We experience true joy and peace the way God intended us to. Sorrow disappears and no longer brings us down. For me, sorrow and frustration – especially over my sin, brings anxiety. Feeling like things are falling apart and the walls are closing in may be an overreaction to the situation, but the anxiety is real. Once anxiety sets in, the struggle really begins. That is when the words of 1st Peter 5:7 come to mind:

“Cast your anxieties on Him, for He cares for you”.  

Casting our cares and anxieties on Him requires us to humble ourselves before Him and admit we can’t go it alone. We need to turn it over to Him and trust in His provisions. This includes all our worries for our recovery, our family, and our future. Satan uses these things to keep us from experiencing true forgiveness and recovery. For me, my worry, my struggles, my sin, and the anxiety they cause brings no peace and joy. It brings the opposite. But if I remember the promise God makes in 1st Peter 5:7 and turn it over to Him, God will take care of me and bring me peace and comfort. I have seen so many examples of this in my life and in the life of my friends that I know it is true. God comforts us!

God created emotions, and sorrow is one of them. God also created the way to break the chains that sorrow places on us and helps bring us to a place of joy and peace. Let the words of Matthew 5:4 and 1st Peter 5:7 be real in your life and find freedom for the chains of sorrow in your life.

Click HERE to listen to "I Choose Joy" by For King and Country

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