Thrive & Flourish预览

Choose Enjoyment

Being joyful is more than experiencing happiness. Being joyful is defined as "feeling, expressing or causing great pleasure and happiness." Being joyful carries with it a sense of overflowing contagious abundance that enriches many people’s lives, not just your own.  

Enjoyment, in the context of family and community life, is the process of entering into joyful being with others, bringing physical and emotional healing alongside other benefits. Celebration is key to community enjoyment. It is the process of taking pleasure in something together; it is concerned with thanksgiving, joy, recreation, relaxation and restoration.  

How do you choose to celebrate with others in your community? It may be marking an achievement, a historical event, a new season, a significant birthday, a sports match; or it may be welcoming new people to your community, or planning an annual summer or winter fun day. Whatever it is, these times are gifts to be created, welcomed, and experienced with thanksgiving. 

Celebration and community enjoyment is healthy, it unleashes gratitude and generosity which are powerful forces for good.  It encourages people to mend relationships where there are challenges, rather than ending them. It encourages mutual accountability, care and genuine concern for others and the surrounding environment.

Being simply YOU is a reason in itself to celebrate and enjoy, for God continually reminds us of our value to Him. He gives us a sense of identity and value that is worth celebration every day! 

So today I can choose to create and find enjoyment in my life and in the lives of others, remembering how God smiles joyfully at my very creation and being!

Prayer: Thank you, God, that we bring you deep joy and that we can bring that joy to others even when life presents us with its challenges. Thank you that by spending time with you, you remind me of who you are and what I mean to you!