What then does it mean that joy is missing? Am I thinking in error? Have I sinned and pushed aside the Holy Spirit? In my life, if joy is absent, this indicates that the Spirit is not producing His fruit and I need to find out why not.
Yesterday, His joy never left, but it existed alongside the reality that my husband’s health was in jeopardy. I felt deep concern yet at the same time a deep sense of God’s arms around me. He didn’t spell out the results of many medical tests, or tell me what would happen in hubby’s life. He only assured me of His care and how He would help me respond rightly to whatever was going to happen.
Tight spot. God holding my hand and my emotions pulled the other direction by all sorts of negative thoughts. Will he need surgery? Will he not come home? Will he be damaged beyond being able to do anything? And the Lord kept saying He would be with me…
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. (Psalm 37:5–6)Things are different this morning, yet I still feel the pressure of that tight spot. Reading the above verses helped. One devotional writer quotes these from another version:
Roll on Jehovah thy way, And trust upon Him, and He worketh, and hath brought out as light thy righteousness, and thy judgment as noon-day. (Young’s Literal Translation)My mind imagines rolling my mixture of emotions on God and Him going to work to enable me to respond to all of it in a godly manner. To me, that means acting rightly in the midst of the turmoil without removing the turmoil. I think of Jesus in Gethsemane.
And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:43–44)He was given strength even as He was in agony. The Father did not remove the agony, His — or mine. But strength was there, both for His greatest trial and for my much less challenging event. If nothing else, the work that He worketh is to give joy in the craziness of a trial. He also worked to resolve the thing that caused me to feel great emotions yet let joy rule.
The devotional that I read warns against becoming so accustomed to delays to answered prayer that we expect them all the time. A tiny example… we drove into a full parking lot and I said, “Lord, it would be super to park near the door, but it is a nice day and we can walk.” And at that moment a car pulled out and we parked right in front of the door. No waiting for His answer.
Sometimes I don’t see the results. Faith is tested, yet “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me” (Psalm 57:2) This is faith; trusting what I cannot see simply because God promises to act on my behalf!
PRAY: Hubby still has pain but You have shown him Your care and arranged a thorough exam that was helpful. The pain will go, but You remain, and Your love and blessing is always with us. So is that great joy, not linked to answered prayer but to the reality that You are always at work to bring forth increasing righteousness even in the pain, fears, and helpless feelings that come with trials. Bless Your holy name.
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