My little girl skips through life finding joy in the most simplest of things. Her sweet smile and cute giggles is enough to melt your heart. She is still young and does not have the weight of the world on her shoulders yet, everything that she sees and hears is lovely and good and the only thing that she has to be concerned about is whether to wear her silver sparkly sneakers or her pink ones!

As young children all we want to do is be a grown up so we can do grown up things. But when we are grown ups all we want to do is be young again so that we can be stress free, living life without a care in the world and being that little girl who skips through life finding joy in the most simplest of things.

God has created us to be joyful. He did not create us to be stressed, worried or anxious. God is joyful… I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11) …. Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10).

And we need to be the joyful people of God that He created us to be and to represent Him to the world around us.… But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful (Psalm 68:3) … And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:52)

The world is full of hopelessness and despair. Every time we watch, listen or read the news it is almost always full of bad news. If we constantly feed ourselves with bad news all the time, we will start to live from a place of fear and despair. The Lord has created us to be joyful but how do we live in that place when all this craziness is all going on around us?

We can pray for all the things that are going on in our crazy world or in our own lives but we do not need to carry the heaviness of these burdens. Jesus said…

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus frees us from our burdens. We can pray and then we need to ask the Lord to take the heavy burden from us. It is no longer ours to worry about or to feel fear and anxiety over. In exchange for our heavy burdens He gives us rest in the form of peace and joy.

We can have peace and joy because we know who God is. He is faithful to take care of us and to provide for us and He gives us strength and wisdom to weather our storms. He is this and so much more for us, and when we know this we can rest in His love and have peace in our lives and we can be that joyful person He created us to be.

So if you find yourself lacking peace and joy in your life I encourage you to reacquaint yourself with who Father God is, rediscover His nature and His ways. Come into His presence and pray for the things that are on your heart and then give them over to God to take care of.