Joy

I'm thinking lots about the joy of the Lord being my strength lately. About how I don't know that my life is a witness of this-- at least not the way I think it can be.

Life isn't easy. Sure, we have our mountain-top experiences. Like the day I held my firstborn. Nothing else in the world existed in that moment! Or perhaps it's an idyllic family dinner, or a Holy Spirit infused prayer meeting, or the satisfaction of stepping back from a freshly weeded and mulched garden bed, or breakthrough in a situation that seemed impossible. We experience and share in victories of all kinds, the greatest being the one when He pulled us from the miry clay and we knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our feet are finally firmly planted and we're home in Him.

Yet along the way, amidst the good things and the victories, we realize day by day that we're in a battle. The truth of how much our enemy hates us and wants to destroy us becomes better understood. We taste the bitterness as well as the sweetness of life.

That's true for everyone. We all live in a fallen world. We all groan for His return and the final defeat of the enemy of our souls.

The difference I see is that some, some have tasted of the Lord and found that He is good. Some have learned to drink at the well of His presence, His peace, His joy. Some have feasted on His love and mercy and found that it changes everything... it changes them.

And that's the key: He changes us. I don't want to just learn how to be optimistic, to retrain myself to see the glass as half-full instead of half-empty, to "think happy." The joy of the Lord is more than positivity vs. negativity. It's a fruit of His Spirit at work in the fibers of my being. He's the One who produces it, and He's the One who will renew it in me.

I just have to stay close to Him.

In staying close to Him, I experience His joy, and that can't help but flow out of me. Joy that paves the way for faith, peace, patience, and a whole host of other good and wonderful and eternal things. Joy that is a bedrock of strength, looking a circumstance, a disappointment, a situation right in the eye and causing me to never flinch, waver, or hesitate-- because His joy is the joy of salvation, and absolutely nothing can take that away.

How I love You
You are the One, You are the One...
I was so lost
You showed the way 'cause You are the Way...
I was lied to
You told the truth 'cause You are the Truth...
I was dying
You gave me life 'cause You are the life...
How I love You
You are the One for me.
- Keith & Melody Green