25 Days God Given Gifts - Day 15

Day 15 ~ Unwrapping the gift of:

JOY

You make known to me the path of life;

    you will fill me with joy in your presence. 

Psalm 16:11a

Joy to the World is such a robust hymn of praise, written in 1719 by Isaac Watts. The more voices singing, the better it sounds. I'm excited that Christmas day is on a Sunday this year.  The first hymn of our church service will be "Joy to the World".

Mr. Watts didn’t intend for Joy to the World to be a Christmas carol. He in fact wrote this song based on Psalm 98. The lyrics were later adapted to what is believed to be music from Handel’s Messiah.   This hymn is one of the most sung Christmas carols today.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

This time of year it's easy to lose focus of what's important in all the demands and expectations we sometimes find ourselves in.

Remember this easy acronym for JOY
J - Jesus
O- Others
Y - You

A children's song titled "Jesus and Others and You"
Written by B. Metzger, 1951 

A wonderful opportunity presented itself to me last week. I was able to extend a random act of kindness to an older woman and her friend after overhearing their conversation. They were left speechless by a simple gesture on my part. Strangers to me, and I to them. We all hugged and parted ways, not even knowing one another's names. I had JOY in my heart all day because of that, and I'm pretty sure they did too.

Have a blessed day friends. You can find all the posts to date in this series here:
25 Days of God Given Gifts