The joyful heart is the buoyant heart—
empowered to rise above its circumstances,
unweighted, unburdened, unbound,
tied only to that which would lift it higher,
untethered from anything which would
pull it down, pull it under or suffocate it.

It's the free heart, quiet and at rest
yet jubilant and uncontained,
the celebrating heart, the praising heart,
the thankful heart, the heart set on pilgrimage,
bent on adventure, journey and romance.

All the while it's a waiting heart
because it's a yielded, led heart—
a heart which doesn't run ahead of the LORD
but willingly, quickly to the LORD—
a heart that though eagerly anticipating each
twisting turn, next horizon and changing path
keeps its eyes fixed not on the scenery
but forever on the Shepherd
because it's a heart persuaded
that He alone is the Great Reward
for which it has always been looking.

True joy is only ours when we find an endless
source of satisfaction, and of these I know only One!
The secret to all joy is to crave Him above all else.
The joyful heart is the one addicted fully to Him,
desperate for Him to the expense of all else,
willing to sacrifice everything to have that craving satisfied.

Joy and idols, I have learned,
do not easily reside together in the same heart.
So if I find that joy is chased away
the most likely culprits are my own desires.
What am I wanting more than Jesus?
For if intimacy with Him is the supreme goal of my life
then nothing can arise which I'm not enabled to bear with joy.
There is, I suppose, nothing so reliable as suffering and loss
to expose all of the hidden idols within me.

It's surely those who have suffered the greatest
and most frequent losses for Christ who are also
most capable of knowing the deepest and most abiding joy.
For it's when we've been stripped bare of everything else
that we begin to know for certain that our joy is based
not on the temporary blessings of our circumstances
but only on the presence of the Eternal Blesser Himself.

Sometimes He offers to us all that is in His right hand,
but for any with eyes truly opened to see
the most precious of times may be those
when He offers to us only the intimacy of His right hand.

Rivers of sadness can open up
into wide gulfs of endless delight and
are often the very courses needed to carry us there.
When all is lost, we find to our amazement
that, even so, we still have ALL
and no one can rob us of it.
When He takes everything from us
He proves Himself to be EVERYTHING to us.

You Are Not a Number
Not Nearly That Simple
You are not defined by the weighted or unweighted
Or the 2400

You are Not a Shape
You are not fat
You are not skinny
It's only the eyes that can be so petty

You are not a Letter
You aren't the A or the F
You aren't the reports hanging over your head.
Or the mark on your forehead.

You are not a label
You are not simply gay, or simply straight
you aren't smart or stupid
you are so much more than just the words.

You are not what they say
When they think you aren't listening
You aren't what they think
You are not to be put in a box.

You are not theirs
You aren't the clothes or the attitude
If You are afraid of what you are
you may allow yourself to become theirs.

You Don't Have To.
Your life is your choice,
the people not so much,
But it's better to be who you are, than the person people aren't afraid of.

You are who you chose
You are who you aren't
You are those secret desires you keep in the dark.
You are the choices you make
You are how you handle life
You are how you handle pressure
You are the activities you do
You are the way you treat others.
Most of all, you are you
You are the only one inside your head
While lonely at times
It's also beautiful.
You are the only one that sees exactly what you see.
You are the only one that thinks how you think.
You are who you hate
You are who love,
You are how you handle the haters
You are one of a kind.
Don't become anything else.