OPPORTUNITIES FOR JOY

Isaiah 37:1-38:22; Galatians 6:1-18; Psalm 65:1-13; Proverbs 23:24

“Lord, your discipline is good, for it leads to life and health. You restore my health and allow me to live! Yes, this anguish was good for me, for you have rescued me from death and forgiven all my sins.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important. Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct.”

“Though we are overwhelmed by our sins, you forgive them all. What joy for those you choose to bring near, those who live in your holy courts. What festivities await us inside your holy Temple. You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior. You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas.”

“The father of godly children has cause for joy. What a pleasure to have children who are wise.”

I have a friend who, whenever our Bible study meets, reminds us to “give thanks for the thorns.” The point, she maintains, is that the thorns of life build character, provide maturity and wisdom, and help us to appreciate the blessings we do enjoy. Fair enough, but that doesn’t make her prayer any easier to say, especially when one is so surrounded by thorns that the rose is not visible. Another friend puts it another way: “Give thanks anyway.” The take away is that gratitude, like love, is actually more a decision than a feeling. It is a commitment to a particular mindset, and not simply an emotion. In fact, gratitude is one of the Lord’s main antidotes for stress and depression. We just don’t worry and strive so hard for things when we fully understand and appreciate what we already possess. It may sound trite or even unattainable for some, but the fact is a truly grateful heart is one that is secure, free of anxiety and able to find the positive blessings in virtually any situation.

My pastor tells a related story of an old man moving to a nursing home. When being led down the hall to his room, he began talking. “I like it very much. This will meet my needs perfectly.” The nurse, interpreting this as a sign of senility, gently reminded her charge that they had not reached his room yet. “Oh, I know,” came his reply. “But I made a decision long ago that my circumstances are not going to determine my state of mind. Instead, I have decided to let my state of mind determine my circumstances.” He saw the room as he willed it to be. Soon, it actually was as he first saw it in his mind: the busiest, brightest and happiest place in the facility. People were always stopping in to say hi or share a cheery word or get cheered up, and none of them ever left disappointed.

Isn’t it curious how we stubbornly fight the Spirit for control of our lives only to abdicate the authority we do have when the chips are down? It seems a simple enough analysis. We can choose to surrender ourselves to the Spirit and subject ourselves to His will, or we can grasp ourselves firmly by the bootstraps and choose to make something out of life in our own strength. The latter choice has its limitations, to be sure. However, the real problem with being human is we usually are so busy reacting to life that we rarely make any proactive decision about how we are going to respond to it at all. Because we aim at nothing intentionally, we invariably hit it. We are left feeling adrift and purposeless. If we are passive long enough, we can waste even the blessing of life, leaving it unexplored and undecided.

I am not advocating self-determination here. But I am saying that, in this area at least, even a bad decision may be better than no decision. Move ahead. Take command, if that’s what it takes to get started. Do you want to be healed? Get up and walk. No worries; God will catch up and be there when needed. Maybe He actually wants you to know it’s OK to first walk on your own for awhile….

It is a simple law of inertia that a body at rest is harder to move correctly than even a similar body going the wrong way. Momentum can be harnessed to make a turn. Those with no energy go nowhere fast.

So, my conclusion is I’ve been looking at failure all wrong. The only failure of a Christian which cannot be redeemed is the decision not to try. Everything else is available for the Master to use for good. Everything else has at least some positive potential. A foundational attitude of gratitude helps us see and understand this, even during the rough times. It provides us a stable base of operations even when we cannot see what our next step should be.

Opportunities for joy surround us daily. We don’t seem them, many times, because we have not affirmatively decided to see them. Sadly, we sometimes even decide not to see them. May the Lord forgive us for the times we have chosen to disregard opportunities for joy. Life has much more to offer than can be seen with human eyes. May we allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to look past the obvious and see everything through the potential of Christ!