7 Prayers for Joy and Peace No Matter What You’re Facing
The morning opens wide over rolling grey hills splashed with vermillion. I walk slowly down the country road, thankful that my prayers for joy have been answered. I feel grateful and hope-filled as we look to the summer months ahead.
Prayers for Joy and Peace
Today, we’ll look at seven prayers for joy and peace. Whether you’re stepping into a hopeful summer season or a barren winter, may these prayers encourage you today.
Prayers for Joy and Peace in All Circumstances
1. Pray for joy that isn’t dependent upon circumstances.
It has often been said that happiness is dependent upon what is happening around us, and joy comes from deep within, unshaken by difficult circumstances. This kind of joy comes from God alone.
God is the source of everything good in this world (see James 1:17).
Even when love and joy flow through those who don’t know God, God is the source of these gifts.
God wants to fill our hearts with joy regardless of our circumstances. Ask God to fill you with his joy so that you might walk in it regardless of what you are facing.
2. Pray that you will learn to find joy when experiencing trials and troubles.
James 1:2-4 reminds us, “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (NASB).
Considering it joy when life gets tough doesn’t come easily to most of us. Yet when we learn how to be joyful in challenging times, this joy carries us forward.
We can be joyful in difficult times because God uses adversity to help us become more mature and complete. Ask God to help you shift to joy when life is challenging.
3. Pray for joy that flows from your relationship with Jesus.
Psalm 16:11 reads, “In your presence is fullness of joy.”
Jesus wants us to experience so much joy in our relationship with him that it naturally fills our hearts and pours out to others.
I periodically step back to assess whether my relationship with Jesus is filling me with joy. It’s easy to fall into patterns in which Bible reading, prayer, and other spiritual disciplines become obligations rather than sources of joy. When this happens, it’s usually time to change the ways we’re pursuing God. He wants these quiet moments to fill us with his joy.
Ask God to fill you with his joy so that wherever you go, you carry the joy of knowing you are in a relationship with him.
4. Ask God to help you embrace the joy of your salvation.
When I first grasped the impact of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, I was filled with uncontainable joy. Sadly, it’s easy for this joy to wane with time.
We can restore our joy in the Lord by periodically remembering the joy of our salvation. By considering the depths from which God has pulled us and thanking him for his sacrifice on the cross, our joy expands.
5. Pray for joy in times of waiting.
Waiting for God to answer our prayers is rarely a pleasant and joyful process. When I’m waiting for God to answer a prayer or open a door of opportunity, I ask him to fill my heart with expectant joy.
God is never late.
His timing is often different than our timing, but we can trust that he will answer our prayers in his perfect timing.
While we wait, we can ask him to fill us with his joy.
God is never late. His timing is often different than our timing, but we can trust that he will answer our prayers in his perfect timing. #trustGod #trust #prayer Share on X
6. Pray for God’s joy to be your strength.
Nehemiah 8:10 tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength.
I’d spoken this verse dozens of times when, one autumn afternoon, I suddenly saw it in a new light. This verse tells us that God’s joy is our strength. I would expect God’s power, strength, or love to be my strength. While all of these attributes can give us strength, it’s noteworthy that God’s joy is noted as our source of strength.
For this reason, I aim to connect with God joyfully every morning.
Most mornings, I sit somewhere quiet and imagine Jesus sitting with me, smiling and filling me with his love. I listen to worship music to help connect with his joy. I often look out the window and experience the joy I feel when I admire his created world.
Pray for God’s joy to fill you with strength, joy, peace, and power. This is a prayer he wants to answer.
7. Pray your joy will be contagious.
We don’t pray for joy simply because it feels good. We are called to be God’s light-bearers in this world. Pray that your joy will flow through you and impact others, drawing them into his love and light as well.
Finding Joy as You Serve the Lord
Now that we’ve explored these prayers for joy, let’s talk about a practical way to experience more joy in our daily lives.
I invite you to step back in time with me to the years when I was the prom coordinator for the high school where I was a teacher.
How to Have More Joy in Stressful Times
Planning a prom is kind of like planning a wedding. You have to create a budget, book the venue, plan the catering, order decorations, hire entertainment, coordinate transportation, and tend to about a thousand tiny details.
The biggest difference between planning a prom and planning a wedding is that thousands of people are counting on you to make their “big day” special when you plan a prom. Entire communities consider prom their “big day,” and making it a success is a lot of pressure.
The first time I planned the prom, I was extremely nervous when the big night came.
Thousands of parents filed into the school auditorium for the “Grand March,” the event in which their glamourous teens walked across the stage and down the aisle to board decorated buses and head to the fancy venue. I remember thinking, I hope I remembered everything. If not, thousands of people will be disappointed, and it will be my fault.
Feeling the weight of responsibility, I hustled here and there making sure the microphone was working for the announcer, checking with students to make sure every couple had their needed notecards, bustling about to ensure the security guards were in the right places, touching base with the chaperones for each school bus, and kindly greeting the bus drivers.
Sweat was trickling down my back when a simple phrase floated through my mind: Enjoy this.
Learning to Enjoy Our Moments
I was hurrying from the buses to the school when the words stopped me in my tracks. I immediately stopped my rushing and fretting, took a deep breath, and admired the scene.
Beaming young ladies were dressed in exquisite gowns, and they giggled as their parents snapped photos.
Dozens of teenage boys wearing black tuxedos admired their dates, adjusted their fancy vestments, and checked their hair.
I was surrounded by love, life, joy, and celebration. I had worked for hundreds of hours to create a special event for the community, and it was finally here. The hard work was done. It was time to enjoy the night.
I often remember that moment.
When I’m stressing over details, trying to control outcomes, worrying about my kids, or trying to undertake six tasks at one time, I remember prom night and how it felt to stop in my tracks and align myself with God’s perspective.
God invites each of his children to step into abundant joy—even amid daunting tasks. He invites us to slow down and learn to recognize his fingerprints on our moments. He wants us to open our hearts to hear his voice. Reminding ourselves to enjoy the good gifts hidden within our moments positions our hearts to receive his replenishing grace.
The enemy wants to steal our joy because he knows joyless lives cannot be fruitful lives. When negative emotions overtake our sense of joy, the enemy gains ground.
Reflect:
Would you describe yourself as a joyful person? In what ways does joy combat the works of the enemy?
An eBook to Help You Stand Firm in Spiritual Attacks
Today’s post is taken from my new eBook, Rise Up. In 12 easy-to-read chapters, Rise Up will teach you 12 practical ways to put on the armor of God and find victory over Satan’s attacks. By changing our battle strategies, we can live in greater victory and push back against the enemy’s schemes. Download this eBook here for just $4.99.
These books are free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase in print:
Lean Into Grace
God wants to work in your life to accomplish what you’ve been unable to do through willpower alone. Lean Into Grace: Let God’s Grace Heal Your Heart, Refresh Your Soul, and Set You Free shares practical ways to experience God’s freedom, healing, power, and presence in your life. Find this life-changing book as a free eBook on Kindle Unlimited or for 12.99 in print right here. (If you do not have Kindle Unlimited, you can try it out with a free three-month trial!) This book will transform your life and revitalize your relationship with the Lord!
Calling all moms and daughters!
Additionally, my teen daughter, Bekah, and I are passionate about helping moms and daughters grow closer while connecting with God. We have written two mother-daughter devotionals together. Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith is written for girls ages 7-12. It includes 60 devotions with Scripture, conversation starters, and a shared journaling section after each devotion.
Heart to Heart: A Mother-Daughter Devotional With 50 Devotions for Teen Girls is for teenage girls ages 13-20. It includes 50 devotions, each with a shared journaling section to help moms and daughters connect through writing. This is a great book for moms who want to communicate about awkward topics—like dating, purity, peer pressure, and more—but don’t know where to start. We will help you!
Multitudes of mothers, daughters, mentors, and younger women are being transformed by these books! You can buy them as paperbacks or get your free Kindle Unlimited eBooks on Amazon right here.
