3 Ways Lasting Joy Comes from Seeking God, Not His Blessings

This is a simple point, but it is so impactful. I think gratefulness and joy are linked together in the spirit. For each thing in our lives that we show the Lord we are grateful for, I believe a measure of joy gets deposited into us.

I have gone through enough tests and trials in my life to know that true joy comes when I seek God and not His blessings. After I had my first daughter, Bailee, my husband and I went through a very difficult season of financial hardship when I decided to stay home from my full-time job to be with the baby. We didn't have many material things, or what many would consider to be ‘blessings,’ but we had so much joy in our hearts. We were able to praise and worship God with full hearts because we were constantly in His presence. He showed us that experiencing His goodness was intertwined with His heart and not in the things that he did for us.

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Be thankful for your portion. Be thankful for your kids, because they are gifts from heaven. Be thankful for your job because God is using it as a means to provide for your needs. Be thankful if you are unemployed because you have the time to sit and wait in the presence of the Lord, and you have the opportunity to truly depend on Him for your every need. Be thankful for the breath that is in your lungs. Find something, even if it is just one thing, and truly thank God for it.

I believe people seek the hand of God more than relationship with Him because they don’t really know how fulfilling relationship with Him is. By nature, we are drawn to the blessings that can make our lives happier and simpler. But what if more people truly desired to learn who God is? What if people just enjoyed closeness with the Lord? People would find unexplainable joy!

We learn this truth when we commune with Him spirit to spirit. 

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I've found that the more I commune with the Father, the more I begin to desire the attributes of His son, Jesus Christ. Jesus had joy when He lived on this earth because He was always in the presence of the Father. Psalm 16:11 tells us that in the Father’s presence, there is fullness of joy. I believe that Jesus lived under a canopy of true joy because he abided in the Father. Jesus is our perfect model and when we die to our flesh every day and align how we love with how Jesus lived, the joy that he had will become our joy.

Blessings are just an added incentive to being sons and daughters of God because of how amazing and incomprehensible His love is for us. I came into this revelation for myself when I graduated college. After I graduated, I had no idea what was next for me, and I really just needed clarity on who I was and what God created me for. Going through four years of university, only to leave feeling more clueless than when I entered was sobering. That season brought me to my knees and spurred me to seek the Lord like never before. There's nothing like an identity crisis to have you running to God! 

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Night and day I prayed earnestly for Him to show me who I was. In the process of me seeking Him, He showed me that I was actually created to worship Him. That I was made to live and to move and to have my being in Him (Acts 17:28). My friend, you were made for the exact same reason. In His presence is the only place we will find contentment.

Something extremely humbling happens to our hearts when we recognize that the Alpha and Omega wants closeness with us. The Lord of all of the heavens, the universe, and the earth, simply wants us. Think about that for a moment. To be honest, that realization alone made me appreciate God in a whole new way.

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Scripture tells us that God inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3). So whenever you praise Him for who He is, He gets exalted and magnified in your life. I love to praise God. When I'm at home, I sing praises to the Lord at the very top of my lungs because He has just done so much in my life! The joy of the Lord becomes your strength when you praise him, and it fills your heart and your atmosphere with His goodness.

The next time a situation comes into your life that presses you to complain or worry, stop what you are doing and choose to praise the Lord. I promise you will become infused with supernatural joy and strength.

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There is a scripture in Matthew 6 that says that as we seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness first, all other things will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). At my home church, Kingdom First, this is the scripture that the church is founded on. So, it's something that I am constantly reminded of. God takes care of us and adds things to us when we seek Him, His kingdom, and His righteousness. Joy is included in this promise. 

The word joy in the Hebrew means gladness. You see, our entire lives can be filled with gladness regardless of our circumstances when we know the Lord of our salvation. When we know Him, we believe Him at His word. When we believe Him, we trust Him, and we aren't swayed by the things that happen to us. 

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You can cultivate joy in your life because joy is a fruit of the spirit. The more we pursue the Holy Spirit, the more we abound in joy. Alternatively, you cannot sustain joy through a blessing. If you wanted to try and do so, though, you'd constantly be looking for the next blessing to hit your life like some kind of fix, and sooner than later, you'd find yourself removing your pursuit of God with the pursuit of what He can give you. That's a dangerous, unstable, and unfruitful place to be in.

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I hope that all of these things help you to see that all of the joy that you could ever possibly need is found in the Lord. Blessings from God are simply added benefits to following Him. They aren't where you will not sustain your joy. Blessings in abundance to you.

Britnee Bradshaw is a free-spirited, Old Navy-wearin', coffee-shop lovin', wife and momma. She serves in the worship ministry with her husband at their home church in Glendale, AZ and writes with the sole purpose of pointing others to Christ. You can catch up with her on her blog, On The Way Up, or via social media @b_brdshw!

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