One day my wife, Cindy, refueled our car at a filling station in a Texas town. Instead of driving up to the self-service pump, she accidentally pulled up to full-service. She didn’t realize the luxury service cost an extra fifty cents per gallon until she paid for the gas. Later she told me how the station had hiked the prices on full-service.

That extra fifty cents per gallon surely has to be a violation of some federal law, I thought. I quickly calculated that the extra seven dollars she spent on full-service would have taken our vehicle 128.33 miles farther down the road if she had bought self-service gas. The “full-service gas station robbery” had me fuming for several hours.

As I was mulling over this terrible injustice, God showed me what I had done. I had sold my joy for seven dollars! I never realized how cheaply I would surrender something so valuable. Just as Esau exchanged his birthright for a bowl of soup, I exchanged my joy for seven dollars’ worth of gas.

At what price are you willing to sell your joy?

(Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 40-41)

One day I was driving my car on a rural highway in Kansas. I was between destinations, with nothing to do but drive and watch the flat land and telephone poles pass by. Then God spoke to my heart, Enjoy the moment.

          Enjoy the moment? What was there to enjoy?

I then realized that joy is a decision that I make. I need to take pleasure in every minute of life, not just the exciting times. God wants us to draw joy from every moment, every circumstance.

Enjoy your fellowship with others. Enjoy spending time with your family. Savor the moments. If you don’t, the life that God wants you to enjoy will pass you by, just like those telephone poles.