Don’t Forget His Joy

A few weeks ago Christian friends were talking about having fun. One of them remarked that God gives pleasure. Since then, I’ve thought about the pleasures of life. Most them are definitely from God:

Thus says the Lord: “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit. (Jeremiah 31:2–5)

Joy in the Lord is not the same as the joy that the world gives. Jeremiah is talking about “grace in the wilderness” and hope for the enjoyments to come in the future. This joy does not depend on circumstances. It is that deep understanding that He is blessing me and that my eternal future is secured. It is also a gift from the Holy Spirit that wells up even during trials, based on knowing God is good and has good results in mind.

This joy can change even the dullest of days into worship and thanksgiving, without externals at its foundation. Simple things bring a smile, like looking out my window this morning and seeing a bunny rabbit sitting within five feet of me, or watching the sky turn bright as the sun comes up. Yesterday was joyful with a gathering of people all from all over the world. It was joyful watching an episode of the Postables who rescued a farm family when all seemed lost, fiction but so like God. Each ordinary event becomes delightful as the Spirit helps me see my Lord graciously making it a pleasure.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)

This does not mean all the bad stuff fades into nothing. My heart still feels the horror and heaviness it did when researching how many homeless children suffer without love, or how some children occupy our local children’s hospital and their parents never visit them. I cannot watch the news when it shows bombings and rubble, or tells of senseless accidents and deaths.

Yet He still gives joy, in sunrises and rabbits, in the affection of those who greet me with a hug, in the delight of color, and grass turning green from dead brown, in getting on the scales to find I’m two pounds less than yesterday. Little things — and a very incredible God. Because of His love and grace, I can relate to these words from King David:

I asked life of you; you gave it to me, length of days forever and ever. Your glory is great through your salvation; splendor and majesty you bestow on me. For you make me most blessed forever; you make me glad with the joy of your presence. For I trust in the Lord, and through the steadfast love of the Most High I shall not be moved. (Psalm 21:4–7, personalized)

PRAY: Jesus, there are days when the bad news or tough aspects of life overwhelm me and that sense of joy hides in the mess. Yet it never really goes away. It is my retreat at fault not Yours. Instead of letting You fill me with delight, I let life fill me with despair. Forgive me for doing that, for forgetting the wonder of life with You instead of being thankful and dancing for joy because of all that You are and all that You do. Truly Your glory is great. Amen.

The Greatest Joy

Last night my knee was bothering me and I complained to God that unless this was healed, I could not go on. This morning He rebukes me for idolatry of good health and comfort. I can easily criticize others for making comfort their god, but He wants me to look in the mirror. I can easily write how God is enough, no matter what, but He shows me that when the ‘no matter what’ is painful, I’m full of hot air. I know the facts — God is enough — but when push comes to shove, emotions so easily pull the train and faith becomes the caboose or gets left behind.

He speaks with this statement: Our souls are of such a divine origin that no other joy but God can ever satisfy them. God made the soul for this high destiny, and His object, therefore, in all the discipline and training of life, is to bring us to the place where we will find our joy in Him alone.

To do that, He must “stain our pleasant pictures and thwart and disappoint our brightest anticipations. He detaches us from all else that He may attach us to himself.” This is not God being mean or unkind. He wants me to be truly joyful in Him, not in “the good life” or His many blessings.

As today’s devotional says, this does not mean that all my friends must die or my prosperity will be taken away, but that my joy will not come from inner or outward causes. Only from Him. He wants me to come to the end of everything that is not God in order to find my joy in Him alone.

It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)

I’ve been looking to Him to give me joy and He is waiting for me to get this right, to seek Him for joy, not seek well-being or anything else to make me joyful. His disciplines are leading me to this:

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. (Psalm 43:4)

Again, today’s devotional sums it up well. I know that God is always seeking to make Himself my “exceeding joy” but until I have been detached from all earthly joys and am ready to find my joy in Him alone, I must still wait for Him. I was assuming the delay was God’s, but realize that it is God who is waiting for me.

PRAY: Jesus, in years of Bible study, much of my slow learning is because I tend to rely on myself, a pitiful excuse for being slow and stubborn, for thinking I know better than You. You show me over and over that self is dead and I need to let that fact be part of what pulls me through the years. You make me love the verses that say I am alive in You, yet living them is another story. Some say that “letting go and letting God” is a Christian cliche, but reality, it is a huge part of being able to experience Your great joy. Forgive me for holding on to my ideas of what will make me happy and enable me to rest in You, my greatest joy.

 

Rewards later and now

 

This week I’ve felt some pressure to add my quilts to an upcoming show. My old life was extremely competitive. Since Christ came in, I’ve increasingly wanted others to do well, succeed and be encouraged. It does not matter to me to have people praise my efforts because I know when God is enabling me and have an increasing desire that He is praised.

Today’s devotional is about enduring persecution because there is a reward in heaven. It made me think of ribbons won in a quilt show. That used to be important, but not so much anymore. For me, the greatest reward is the joy experienced by those who receive a quilt, and the joy of those who receive a ribbon.

Yes, a quilt takes many hours and considerable dollars to design, gather fabrics, and construct, and that could be considered a sacrifice, but when something is done in love, that is not an issue either. Moms who love their children do not gripe because the child needs them at three in the morning. I do not gripe because someone needs the comfort of a quilt no matter what it costs me to give it.

For the same reason, the promise of my reward in heaven is not a motivation to share Christ with others. That can make it too much about me, me, me when the good news is about Jesus and about those who need to hear of His love for them and who need to experience His unconditional love.

A woman once said to me, “I love helping people because it makes me feel so good.” I didn’t say it then, but have thought often, ‘but what if it doesn’t make you feel good?” What if love means hanging on a cross until you suffocate and die? What if loving others costs you your back account? Or health? Or all your spare time?

The beatitudes are not about love, but about attitudes and results. Some will want pride and confidence more than they want poverty of spirit and the kingdom of heaven. However, when Jesus comes in and puts us in His family, He also brings in a love that is so powerful that dumping pride and self-confidence becomes a delight, replacing that me, me, me with great joy in doing something good for someone else, regardless of the cost.

Yes, it is in the Christian experience to be persecuted, but the love of Christ endures . . .

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:1–4)

He endured for the joy set before Him so He could give His people that joy, not only in the future but in the middle of our suffering.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11–12)

Lord Jesus, some people are future oriented, always looking ahead. I’m not, nor do I think much about what is past. I understand why rewards could appeal to others. For me, living for You and loving others like You do is about joy right now. That means being filled with Your Spirit. The Spirit gives joy, even during hardship. I appreciate Your words in Matthew 5 and Your promises for the future yet I also am very grateful for the vitality of life You grant to me each moment of each day. You know my weaknesses and You supply the grace and peace to get me through, even enable joy when otherwise I might be devastated and filled with grief. Besides that, Your love drives me to speak up, to tell others the good news, without thinking how they might react negatively but with hope of the opposite and delight that I’ve done what You ask me to do. So what if I suffer? You suffered far more!

READ Hebrews 11 and note the results of faith. How are they all positive?

 

 

 

Waiting for the shoe to drop?

 

READ Psalm 91–95

In the late 19th and early 20th century, apartments in New York were built with bedrooms on top of one another. It was common to hear your upstairs neighbor take off a shoe, drop it, and then repeat the action. This became shorthand for waiting for something you knew was coming. These days, a pessimist might use this phrase to predict doom and gloom yet an optimist is cheerfully looking forward to another good day.

Sometimes I am both. Because we are not yet in heaven, and because Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” I expect disasters. However, when I read the psalms and think about the way God takes care of me, I wake up singing praises to God. this morning was like that and these five psalms filled me with the attitude that today will be a good day . . .

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge— no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent . . . . Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. (Psalm 91:9–16)

Are these the words of a Pollyanna who seemingly cannot see the troubles in the world, one of those positive optimists that never see or say a bad word? I don’t think so. When my faith is focused on God, even the trials come out of the shadows because He reveals what He is doing and how it means positive changes in my life:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28–29)

The psalmists focused on those positives. They wrote of life in optimism, encouraging those whose faith is in Christ to look forward to good days — using words like this:

The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. (Psalm 92:12–15)

Each time I read the above verses, I’m blessed, something like the blessing of hearing about a person over 100 who is running daily or is still making quilts. Only the Lord’s blessing is not “I hope I can be like that” but more like “This is Almighty God making a promise!”

Does the joy continue when God chastens me for sin? or when troubles come that are not my doing? It can, depending on my perspective and how I see the hand of God in it:

Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law, to give him rest from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked. For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage; for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it . . . . When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. (94:12–19)

Sadly, lack of praise means a hard heart and lack of peace. It was true in the OT and still is:

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.” (95:6–11)

Instead of being a restless person who is always ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ God wants me to do what the psalmist does — and invite others to praise Him with me: “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” (95:1–3)