In all Things…Joy.
For a successful life in business and anything else, a major requirement is that you are not just happy, because happiness is a momentary thing that comes and goes with circumstance. No, what is needed is that solid, immovable, inner quietness -more even than peace, the only word that works here is…Joy. Mot people, (myself included) don’t really have a grasp on what the word means, we throw it around in our speech, but usually we are talking about some aspect of happiness, and not true joy.
And then we hear some o-jumbo “mystical” explanation of joy and never really understand it,but we nod our heads because while we know we don’t know…we also feel that there is something about joy that is bigger than us, something really important – something we really need to look at.
So of course we try to run away from it as fast as we can. We are only human -you can’ really expect us to have Joy?
Now, because this blog is about success in life and business I usually tend to stay away from what you might call the “spiritual” aspects of life (at least overtly), but the problem is human beings (regardless of what some might say) are spiritual beings. Joy is made from spiritual stuff. And I hate to break it too you, but if you were actually completely without any joy whatsoever, you would be dead – yes…physically dead.
At the bare bones level you have something that motivates you to at least breath, so that your heart pumps blood, call it the “spark of life” call it “motive force” but at some level you are alive – when you die and the doctor calls time of death – whatever that spark was, is gone.
That spark is the essence of joy. Through pain, through pleasure, through agony and ecstasy, Joy exists as the motive force.
As as such, you must have it to succeed in life. So, what do we do to increase our joy? How do we understand what it is, where it is, and how to separate joy from merely being happy?
Well, I got the answer today from the young man with the crazy hair (sometimes it’s black, sometimes it’s blond…) in the picture here.
Well, actually he just passed the message on to me from a …”higher” source
Stop complaining.
Pastor Steven Furtick
That’s it. Just stop complaining about how bad you got it, stop worrying about what you don’ have, take what you do have and use it with what you do know. Joy is the fact that we are alive and we can move. Choose to move forward.
The man in the picture, by the way, is Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church (www.elevationchurch.org), my church, in Charlotte NC. It was the second fastest growing church in America last year with three campuses – the man knows what success is, he is only 28 years old! Now he would tell you that success, real success, is knowing who you are in relationship to God, and that is true. But I want to focus on joy for the moment.
Without that quiet, strong supporting foundation of joy, you will not have the power to overcome the difficulties to succeed in life or in business, or anything else. You have to at first recognize that every moment of life is a gift and be willing, despite your circumstances, to use that gift to move you toward some goal. Life is movement, and Joy is the engine that life uses to move forward.
So this is going to be hard, good stuff usually is… To stop complaining both on the outside, and on the inside. What do we have to complain about? How many of us have food to eat every day? how many have a place to sleep, cloths to wear. You have heard all of this before, but this time I want to you to understand that our complaining actually lowers and limits our joy – bringing us to a lower level of success. Our ability to think intentionally about those things we want to succeed in is directly in proportion to the inner joy that transcends all feelings we have.
Joy is the stuff our true success is made from.
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David T. McKee
