Kay Warren On Finding Joy, No Matter What

"Joy is the unshakeable assurance that God is in control of all the details in my life. The quiet confidence that ultimately everything will be alright; and the determined purpose to praise God in all things." - Kay Warren on finding joy each day



Joy is a choice we make everyday.

This was the message that Kaye Warren – teacher, author, speaker and wife of Dr. Rick Warren, author of the New York Times best seller “The Purpose Driven Life” brought to the crowd that gathered to hear her in a talk sponsored by the Management Association of the Philippines and the Purpose Driven Life Ministries. In addition to founding and leading Saddleback Church, one of the largest Christian churches in the United State, a few years ago, the Warren's set up Acts of Mercy a foundation, dedicated to care for hurting people the way Jesus did., set up Acts of Mercy, a foundation dedicated to care for hurting people the way Jesus did. Persons with HIV and their families are the main beneficiaries of this foundation.

Kaye Warren, a two-time cancer survivor of breast and skin cancer, mother to a child with bipolar disorder and in her own words, one who “struggled with many difficult years, early in my married life” knows whereof she speaks. A survivor of life, she defines joy as “The unshakeable assurance that God is in control of all the details in my life. It is the quiet confidence that ultimately everything will be alright; and the determined purpose to praise God in all things."

Warren says that the Bible commands us difficult things – “Don’t worry about anything” and “Consider it a sheer gift to suffer.” She says that if one were to base joy on how others respond to us or base it on the 4 P’s – possession, position, personality and people, then one will never find it. Joy, Warren says, needs to be based on the word of God.

In her talk entitled “Finding Joy, No Matter What”, Warren talked about five practical ways on how one could choose be joyful everyday. First, she says, one needs to find the humor in each day. Quoting from Proverbs 15:15, “All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast,” she explains that for a negative person, everyday is a terrible day, while for the cheerful person, everyday becomes a feast. “Life is really absurd and so you must see it for what it is and laugh at it,” she begins, “Laughter and tears come from the same deep well within us.” Warren says that we shouldn’t take life too seriously and not be afraid to find the laughter into each day. The ability to laugh at one’s mistakes and shortcomings is guaranteed to bring joy into one’s day.

Her second pointer for finding joy, is for everyone to remember that joy is rooted in gratitude. “Sometimes I’m a whiner. And whenever I whine, I feel like I’m walking in a fog, complaining against the goodness of God that I fail to see.” The best way to get out of this kind of thinking and whining, Warren says, is to stop comparing your life with the lives of other people. “Think of your blessings and of ways that you can be grateful and express that gratitude. In every life, there is always something to be thankful for. And when you are thankful, joy will naturally follow.”

Thirdly, Warren encourages everyone to become a giver. “You need to find delight in serving,” she stresses. “It’s not all about “me” – the person who only thinks of his or her family, goals, dreams and plans – develops tunnel vision.” This kind of attitude, she explains, makes one a taker and not a giver. Warren’s voice broke a bit when she recounted a story about a neighbor of hers whom she felt she could have saved but didn’t. “At that time, early in my marriage, I was so focused on my family, my children and my ministry. I should have given her more time.” For many months, Warren would hear this next door neighbor cry at night, despondent over the pending dissolution of her fourth marriage. “I kept putting it off. I brought her over some tapes of Rick’s sermons but never really got around to spending more time with her.” One evening, the woman left a Kaye a note thanking her for her friendship and saying goodbye. “By the time you read this, I will be dead,” the note said. Frantic, Warren tried to find the woman, contacted her husband who was uninterested in finding her. An hour later, the woman shot herself in front of her husband, and Warren was able to catch her in the hospital. Unfortunately, she died. “From then on, I swore that I would never allow something like that to happen again.” She admonished the crowd listening to her that morning, “Don’t be too busy with your life. Giving does not always mean money. More often, presence is even more important.”

Live IN the moment is Warren’s fourth suggestion on how one can find joy everyday. “Take each moment of your life for what it is and find God IN the moment,” she says. At this point in the talk, Warren opens up about the sadness she used to feel for her son who was born with a bipolar disorder. “One day, we were on the beach, walking on the shore. It was grey and cloudy and I was feeling so sad for this boy who had known so much sadness in his young life. How he was not in the school that day because he was plagued by his depression. Then suddenly I took a good look at him and saw how how happy he was on the shoreline – skipping about and throwing rocks into the sea. And then I realized that God had given me that moment with my child to enjoy,” Warren looks back on that day. “This is the day the Lord has made, let us be rejoice and be glad in it,” she tells the crowd, quoting from Psalm 118:24. She further explained that people should not wait for the perfect moments in their life before finding joy. “Don’t wait until you lose that last 10 pounds, or get that new job, or that raise or the new house… you can be joyful right now.”

Lastly, Warren encourages people to find “the bless in the mess” as a means of finding joy in life. “Life is like the railroad tracks. Joy and sorrow run parallel to each other. I used to think life was like the waves and so I would be up one day, down the next. However, in your life there are things that you can be both happy and sad about. The trick is in knowing that both come at the same time. Warren cites her own life as an example of this and of how she found greater patience and compassion because of her own son’s condition, of how she is able to say to the HIV patients that she ministers too “I know a little of what you are going through,” because of her bouts with cancer. “Even in the early struggles of my marriage there is a blessing. Nowadays when I counsel couples in crisis, there is not a problem I have heard that I cannot empathize with. Rick and I have built a strong marriage but out of the 31 years we’ve been together not all of them were great and so I am able to tell couples, don’t leave, you can survive this.” Warren stresses that even in the most heart-rending mess, there WILL always be a blessing. “Find joy in spite of… in the middle of…even if… always remember that joy is the settled assurance that comes from knowing that God is in charge of my life.”


Link : Kay Warren talks about HIV in this CNN article.