Focus on Joy!

                                                                                                            

 Blog #24

    Having joy is like taking a picture with a digital camera.  First, you find something that seems to be a source or image of joy. It is not hard to find joy, if you just look.  Words, ideas, scriptures, people, nature, and God can be wonderful sources of joy.

                                        
 

    Next, you digitally frame the image like you would with a camera.  Select the part that you want to remember: to “rejoice” in.  Then, focus with your mind’s eye (as you would a camera lens).  You intently observing, meditating upon and committing to memory the image of joy. This is the key point about joy: you have to focus on it! You focus your mind like you would your camera for a photograph of a broad spanning image of an item or small detailed close-up shot.

     Sometime it is better to look at the forest, sometimes the trees and sometimes the minutest details of the leaves.  So it is with sources of joy: sometimes looking with vision at the overview brings joy.  Sometime it is better to just look at the source of joy without any special lens.  Other times, it is better to zoom in and recognize the smallest element or trait to focus on the joy.  An example might be this: people in a crowd do not make me feel particularly joyful, nor would an individual standing in front of me that I do not know.  However, thinking about some of the tiny, special, unique qualities that our Creator infuses in that individual might be a source of great joy for me. 

     If you do not focus, you will lose your image.  You may lose the window of opportunity for that special moment of joy.  Do not allow negative thoughts, people or events to take the joy from you! Keep your focus!  Point and click your mind’s camera lens.

     Now that the image is recorded in your mind, you need to continue to delight in it. Thank God for your joy! You can keep it in the camera (short-term memory) or save it on the computer (long-term memory). You can even do some digital editing if your image is not clear. You can share it in a number of ways. You can use it to encourage, to express love and peace. You can discuss and debate it.  You can print or write about it.  You can save it for a gloomy day.

     Joy will find a way to be shared. It sometimes comes out loud and clear like a song.  Sometimes it serves to intensify a celebration or event.  Sometimes it serves to encourage or love.  Sometimes it peeks through a cloud like a ray of sunshine on a dark, rainy day.  Joy is sometimes the heart’s response to the rainbow that you turn around and see on that same dark, rainy day. Seize the Kodak moment! (By the way, if you have any ideas about this topic, I would love to hear from you.  I certainly have a lot to learn!)