Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn't Enough

by Kay Warren

Publisher:

Revell

, 2012

Overview

True joy can be yours--even in times of struggle

On April 5, 2013, Kay Warren’s life changed forever. That was the day she lost her son Matthew to suicide. Most of us will not face anything so devastating, but every single day we will face something that threatens our attempts to live with joy. Health problems, financial worries, marriage issues, loneliness, unresolved relational conflicts, anxiety about our nation or our world, stress over how our kids are turning out. In those moments, how do we choose joy over fear, apathy, or despair?

In Choose Joy, Kay shares the path to experiencing soul-satisfying joy no matter what you’re going through. She helps you send your spiritual roots deep into the soil of God’s love so that you can develop convictions and certainties about him that will become the source of your strength when happiness isn’t enough.

“The only thing that would allow me to survive the loss of my son was what I knew and believed about God . . . and joy,” says Kay. Let her lead you toward true and lasting joy in your life.

From the Back Cover

Why are some people--even in the toughest times--always filled with joy, while
most of us can’t seem to find lasting joy no matter how hard we search? Do joy-filled people know something we don’t?

The answer is yes! And in her warm, candid style, Kay Warren shares that life-transforming truth with you.

Contents

Top Highlights

“Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and the determined choice to praise God in all things.” (source)

“Joy is a settled conviction ABOUT God. It’s a quiet confidence IN God. And joy is a determined choice to give my praise TO God.” (source)

“God created us to be joyful. There’s really no doubt about it. But God has left the decision whether to access that joy up to us. You and I get to decide if we’re going to choose joy—created by God, bought and paid for by Jesus’s death, given as a personal gift from the Holy Spirit—or not.” (source)

“What we think determines how we act, and how we act determines how we feel. I was operating on the belief that I needed to feel differently before I could think differently. But the formula is reversed: Our thinking changes first, our actions come next, and our feelings follow.” (source)

“Rick has said many times, ‘You can’t feel your way into an action, but you can act your way into a feeling.’” (source)

Product Details

• Title : Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn't Enough
• Author: Warren, Kay
• Publisher: Revell
• Publication Date: 2012
• ISBN: 9781441238870

About Kay Warren

Kay Warren cofounded Saddleback Church with her husband, Rick Warren, in Lake Forest, California, in 1980. After the death of her son, Matthew, who lived with serious mental illness for most of his life, she founded Saddleback's Hope for Mental Health Initiative as a way to support individuals and family members of loved ones with mental illness and suicidal ideation. The Initiative also trains others in the faith community how to launch or expand existing mental health ministries.

Kay is a board member of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and is active in mental health/suicide prevention efforts in Orange County, California. She is the author of Sacred Privilege, Choose Joy, and Say Yes to God, and coauthor of Foundations, a popular systematic theology course used by churches worldwide. Her children are Amy and Josh, and Matthew (who is in heaven), and she has five grandchildren.