Dear Christian Girl, The other evening, during family prayers, my younger brother said something that struck a deep chord: he pointed out how we often “regularize our blessings.” In other words, we’ve grown so used to God’s daily goodness that we begin to treat the extraordinary as ordinary. We no longer see them as miracles we just call them "normal." But think about it how often do we pause to thank God for things like breathing without machines? For waking up in sound mind? For limbs that work, hearts that beat, and organs that function without any command from us? Somewhere along the way, we began treating the mercy of God as routine as though it’s our right. Psalm 103:2 reminds us clearly: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” That “all” includes the silent ones too the doors that opened without noise, the sicknesses we never even knew were coming, the delays that were actually divine protection. It includes grace we didn’t pray for, and favour we...
Up today, thinking, what's the difference between joy and happiness? It got me genuinely curious because the Bible says in Galatians 5:22-23 that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit... not happiness. So, I went to a dictionary. Happiness, according to the Oxford dictionary, is the state of being happy, and happy is feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. Joy, on the other hand, is the feeling of great pleasure and happiness. So, why are we going round in circles and repeating the same thing? They can be used interchangeably, right? Wrong... not according to the Bible, at least. The Bible attributes joy as one of the fruits of the Spirit and not happiness because happiness is fleeting... joy is permanent. Happiness is an emotion... you've been working hard on something, and you finally get it; you wanted a new bag, and finally had the money to get it – small, mundane things in our everyday life that lift our spirits. But joy, on the other hand... joy is a decision, a choi...