Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by your name. Jeremiah 15:16 NKV

So you prayed and identified your joy stealers. I'll veer off to encourage those that feel they have been hit way too hard to even think of joy. Maybe you are dealing with a death, divorce, chronic or fatal illness, or anything that you find insurmountable to you, I propose to you go through your period of mourning. Ecclesiatics 3:4 reminds us that there is a time to weep. But, yes but, after you have wept I would like you to ask yourself a very critical question based on Romans 8:35. Have your painful circumstances seperated you from God's love? They can make you feel that way if you let them, please don't let them. God loves you. Believing that is one of the keys to reclaiming your joy. I must tell you I believe He loves me so much that I'm not afraid to ask Him why, God whhhhhyyyyy. Does He always answer? Not always the way I would like but certainly He does send comfort.

Now moving on to the next step after praying and identifying joy stealers........prayer. Go to God and confess if you have been giving away your joy to something that you can overcome through Christ. I've come to the conclusion that I can overcome all things through Christ. So after confession I make my request known, Abba, Father, I want Your joy, in me and flowing out of me. I want it to be so full that anyone standing near me would be infected.

Joy equals strength

I'm so guilty. Yes I'm one who has claimed that the joy of the Lord is within me and quoted a few scriptures to back me up, but not even my own self could find that joy if I went a searching. With all the promises in the word of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit why is it true "joy" is so hard to detect in some Christians? Well I'll just speak for myself, my joy was stolen. No, I'm not playing the blame game, I was at fault for it being stolen. We are given certain advice in the scripture that if followed we will protect the gift or fruit of joy given to us. But what's so great about joy anyway? Enter Nehemiah 8: 10, the last section 'Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength'. I can just hear myself among the other Sunday school children, way back when, singing at the top of our lungs, "The jooooyyy of the Looorrrdd, is my strength". Fast forward today and I must confess, I'm just recovering my joy and indeed I'm recovering my strength. Oh I have done my do for the Lord, I've had the comments and compliments and people wondering how I achieved, but I now know why great accomplishments (in my small neck of the woods) often left me feeling just plain weary.

JOY STEALERS

I believe before you can retrieve anything you must know who or what took it in the first place.
So lets look at how I came to my recovery and started on my way up. First I had to be frank about .....
What stole my joy?

• Anxiety - I confess I use to worry way too much (even while quoting scriptures against worry)
• Anger - At those who hurt me
• Hurt - you know that's right and there is many reasons for this
• Being betrayed - By someone dear, dear, dear to my heart.
• Being lied on, lied to, lied about, decieved, taken for a fool 
• Failure - my start up businesses were stuck in park
• Relationship woes - Thank God for Jesus. We're on our way up even higher than before.

Hey why don't you take the time to check yourself. Do you have joy, real joy??? How about start your own list of joy stealers. Come on, be honest with you, it's worth the pain. Besides it will be between only you and God and guess what, if He ever reveals your secret it would be to someone who is assigned to help you. Trust me He did that for me and I have no regrets. So take some time and come back I'll tell you how I reclaimed. I'll leave you with my biggest weapons, identify what's missing and pray, pray, pray. Then get ready for the next step because frankly my dear it ain't gonna fall out the sky and into your lap.