Tiny Habits® for Joy – “I’m So Happy to See You!” – Jesus

“I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I have drawn you near with unfailing kindness.” – Jeremiah 31:3

Can you believe that God loves you like this? The same God who spoke the universe into existence and designed the whole of reality, loves you – with an everlasting, unfailing love. I hope that you dare to believe this and to take God at His word concerning your worth and value as His beloved child.

I pray that reading this verse disturbs your spirit in all the right ways as it did for me when I first read it as a 17-year-old with absolutely no understanding of my worth, who God was, or what it means to trust someone, or anyone.

My life’s adventure before reading this verse taught me that no one is truly trustworthy and that if there was a god, He was like the other adults in my life – absent, distracted and definitely not interested in the less-than, mutant, misfit, sub-par versions of humanity I considered to be my tribe.

But something about that verse felt true. And it stayed with me and gave me courage to keep reading. As I journeyed through the Old Testament, I kept picking up on that same familiar theme: This God knew something I didn’t know about this thing called ‘love.’ And then I began reading the Gospels, and everything changed.

Do you dare to believe that God so loved you, that He came Himself to show you the way home? If so, will you accept the supernatural gift of courage to consider that you are God’s beloved child? He created you to know you, love you and be with you forever. God says that if His thoughts of you could be numbered, they would outnumber the grains of sand on the earth, and He is genuinely happy to see you.

This truth is a Tiny but Mighty reality that awakens your spirit to true joy. Jesus says in John 15 that everything He shares is so that His joy would be in us and our joy would be made complete.

The joy of the Lord that we read about all though Scripture is the kind of joy you feel when you know someone is genuinely happy to see and be with you. This is the joy of the Lord, and it is why He came Himself, to journey with and to be fully present with you. You are His beloved child and you are never alone.

If you’ve not yet experienced the soul-rest that comes from understanding this truth. I pray that you will try a simple experiment for the next 5 days. It’s a Tiny Habit® recipe that I call, “Resting in God’s Joy.”

It’s important to know that emotions create our habits and creating new habits is as easy as ABC.

Start with an Anchor moment:

After I … Find a quiet corner to create a sacred space for a sacred moment.

Followed by the ‘Tiny Behavior’:

I will…Take 3 deep calming breaths – in through the nose, out slowly through the mouth as if exhaling through a smoothie straw.

Immediately follow with a ‘Tiny Celebration’ to literally wire the new habit into your brain:

I will celebrate by…Smiling and whispering a Tiny but Mighty prayer: “Father, thank You for always being happy to see and be with me.”

And just be still and listen holistically – with your body, mind, spirit and soul.

Be still and quiet for 2 minutes for 5 days and I pray you’ll feel your spirit incrementally shift toward joy. Because it’s not the Super-Star Celebrity acts of faith that make the difference in the life of a true Disciple.

It’s the tiny acts of faith, resting in the presence of God, overflowing into a life filled with His love and shining His light.

It’s the tiny things that accumulate into a lifetime of faithfulness, sustained by the everlasting love and unfailing kindness of the One who made you to know you, love you, and be with you forever.

I pray you’ll be inspired to design your very own Tiny Habit recipes for joy, confident in the fact that God is always happy to see and be with you, because you are so loved!