“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
James 1:2-4 NLT
Has it crossed your mind lately how much you can change people just by putting on joy? It will change your employees. It will attract customers — nobody wants to hang with negative, grumpy, complaining people. Joy is much like contentment. It is a state of mind. So if you are noticing yourself getting a little critical and grumpy and judgmental, you are probably ready for a mind makeover. Romans 12:1-2 in The Message Bible tells us, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” If you want a mind makeover, then focus your attention on God and you’ll be changed from the inside out. Stop trying to psychoanalyze yourself, reading every self-help book, and start reading the Bible and come to grips with the fact that joy is a God-given attribute. You can’t buy it. You can’t read enough books to get it. Joy is a God thing, so fix your attention on Him.