God created delight, joy, and ecstatic bliss as a gift. God created within all of us the neurological and spiritual receptors to receive and celebrate these precious gifts. Through prayer and meditation, through devotion, gratitude, celebrating beauty, and opening our hearts to love, we nurture our capacity for authentic ecstasy. Real joy occurs when we allow heaven to reach into our souls, invade our hearts, and kiss us with the kiss of the Beloved. Of course life will always involve a degree of suffering; this is just the way it is on planet earth. But through God-inspired joy, we protect ourselves from the deadly temptations of despair and hopelessness. Remember these truths: suffering is temporary because it has its source in circumstances that are always changing. Joy is eternal because its source is God.
If I allow, invite, and seek
Your gifts of divine joy and delight,
I will surely receive them!
