Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

Philippians 4:4-5

I don’t remember who said it, but a friend of mine referred to another acquaintance as a sad person. What is it that makes someone so sad that it affects their everyday personality? Maybe it is a response to a lack of hope in some kind of situation, but it is a devastating position, wouldn’t you agree?

Life has its share of highs and lows. As I mentioned over the last week of so, we’ve attended a couple of funerals recently and one song I can’t get out of my head is “Through it All” by Andrae Crouch. I find myself humming the tune whenever my mind wanders a. bit.

It’s a song about learning to trust and depend on the Lord in every part of our lives and in that dependence we can experience joy even when things don’t appear to be joyful in the moment.

Are you a joyful person? It is a fruit of the Spirit and I think it is also a bit of a mindset.

Paul makes it clear in the verses above that we should choose to be joyful in our lives as followers of Christ and evidence of that joy is in the way we interact with others. Like joy, we can choose to kind and thoughtful. So, are we considerate of others? Are we known as someone who is reasonable? Are we gentle? Each of these thoughts are expressed in different translations of that verse.

Finally, remembering the Lord is coming soon keeps everything in perspective. Whether His return happens in our lifetime, our not, we know that the promise of the Lord’s return should affect the way we conduct our lives everyday.

And so we choose to rejoice even when life can sometimes be difficult.