Joy

Yesterday, I read about joy in my devotional. The verse was Nehemiah 8:10.

"The joy of the Lord is your strength."

I'm going to be quite honest: I really struggle with joylessness. Somehow I put on act - at least for some people. In fact, at work people have actually said, "How can you smile so much?" The smile doesn't always equate to a sense of joy.

I try to find my strength in self-sufficiency - and you can guess how great that works out. I think that in some way I can manage my guilt, fears, and doubts on my own. Somehow I try to manage my fears of failure and rejection.

How do I try to manage all of this?

At work, I try to control people. If only people would do like I think it needs to be done, then we wouldn't have any problems. (Let me tell you, this works great. Not.) To try to find a sense of purpose, I keep taking classes with the hopes of finding something that "clicks."

I would like to find strength in the joy of the Lord. The other stuff wears a guy down.