Praising God in the storms of the trials of life is not easy, especially at first. First, it’s often necessary to find things that can bring a smile to your face even in the midst of whatever it is you’re in the midst of. That is going to be different for each person. So, what things bring you joy?
4.Do things that bring you joy
Look at pretty pictures of God’s world and remember how everything is delicately balanced for us and given for us to use. It’s hard to look at the beauty of God’s world and not feel some amount of joy.
Listen to uplifting music and sing along or sing harmony. I am a “wannabe” musician. I used to write songs and I was a voice major in college before I switched to Speech Communication. I can’t help but feel better when I hear beautiful music and sing along. It usually makes me feel better to sing along to praise and worship music sometimes the same song over and over again.
Call a friend. Sometimes you need a real, living person you can talk things over with. Just talking through our feelings can help us feel a bit better because we have expressed them and someone cared enough to listen. Many times we aren’t looking for a solution because we already know what our options are, but sometimes we may be surprised at our friend’s ability to help us find one! Even if nothing gets resolved, you will probably find yourself feeling better just because you were able to share your feelings with a good and trusted friend.
One caution. There is a strong possibility that there will be a time in your trails when things get to feel too much where you can’t even envision yourself having fun or laughing. That’s ok. There will be those times. Take some time to be mad, sad, or cry. I wrote an article once called Sometimes You Need a Pity Party for just that reason. But for those times when you don’t need a pity party, you can find things that will help you get out of the hole trials have tried to bury you inside. You can crawl out with the help of these techniques, a good friend, or a good cry, and some serious prayer and comfort from the Lord.