How about preemptive joy?

The holidays were approaching and as each day ticked off on the calendar I was slipping further and further into a funk. Though I longed to be reunited with certain loved ones, the prospect also filled me with a degree of dread. These gatherings, fraught with family dynamics, often left me feeling hurt, misunderstood, and disconnected.

I asked the Lord what was going on with me. I know from practice that, if I ask, he is quick to pinpoint how I’m thinking and feeling. The thought came to me, “You’re preemptively angry.”

I instantly realized how accurate that was. Before I’d even bought a gift or decorated the tree, I was bowed up, on guard, bristling; ready to fire back if accused, criticized, or even looked at sideways. Anger had been my strategy much of my life. Anger feels more powerful than pain.

I asked for HIS strategy.

Immediately, I sensed these words: “How about preemptive joy?”

Huh.

I began to open that thought like a well-wrapped package. Preemptive joy. What if I were to expect joy instead of disappointment? What if I were to go in ready to freely love and be authentically me, rather than on guard and calculating?

“That feels vulnerable,” I told God. I felt his smile and something like a wink in my heart as he responded, 

“Love gives you the upper hand.”

Hearing God always gives us a choice. That December, I chose the strategy the Holy Spirit shared with me instead of my old default self-defense mechanism of anger–and it was a game-changer.

God’s strategies are always better. We just have to listen for them.