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Psalm 16:11

From the Psalms:

"You will make known to me the path of life;
In your presence is fullness of joy;
In your right hand there are pleasures forever." 
Psalm 16:11

John 15:9-11

Jesus:

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." John 15:9-11

Joy to the World

What to Bring to the Christmas Party? How About Grace?

Grace is when God drives our words, actions and responses, not the hurt, pre-occupation or irritation one may be experiencing at the moment.

I recently cut myself off from this grace when I spoke from a place of hurt to a person I had no business sharing my hurt with. I realized a week later that I had not kept a “tight rein” on my tongue (James 1:26), and thus missed God’s call to exhibit grace.

We can wait forever for hurts and slights to heal and go away, deciding only then to respond as God would have us; or we can respond as God would have us no matter what we are feeling.

Going into this season of many-faceted social gatherings—often involving alcohol—many words will be exchanged, innuendoes let loose, and misunderstandings birthed. We Christians must remember that the world without Christ (even though they celebrate the holiday that is His alone), will not act as a Christian.

So that leaves it up to us, who have been born again in Christ, to live and speak as He would have us. Which means to respond His way in all situations, and with all people. In His grace people cannot turn us into doormats; instead we become welcome mats to Him by His grace in us.

His grace replaces the frustration we feel toward others with His compassion, and our perspective with His perspective.

All the affirmation and love we’ve sought or thought we needed from certain other people is supplied by the Triune God of our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That frees us from all offense, real or imagined. And it frees us to love others in God's power, not ours. Now that is living in joy!

In the knowledge of the marvelous truth of His acceptance of us as His children, we can confidently go forth into a crowded room of people. Already filled to the brim with God-sourced love, we have no space left—nor do we make way for—insults, slights, political and ideological differences, past histories, and future—often unrealistic—hopes for relationships.

Instead, schooled by God, we choose to acknowledge, in the midst of other people, that much of what is said in conversations can be taken or heard out of context, spoken without thinking, or is derived from a place of another person’s deep pain and anger.

We do well to admit that what we often hear is not what the other person said or meant.

And when we do hear what is actually said, and it is meant to be mean-spirited, and verbal insults directly or indirectly dished-out do pierce, we continue to respond or remain silent in grace (but rightly place graceful boundaries around all future encounters with this person).

Which means we don’t enable their sin, participate in it or condone it, whether it is directed at us or someone else. We remain calmly steadfast in our obedience to God, not man or self, in how we respond and think about it later.

Christmas seems to be an especially trying time due to its specificity. We clearly remember Christmases of the past, good and bad, and what or who made them good and bad.

We might be pining for a person no longer in our life. We might be dreading the obligation to visit yet again with someone who has managed to be the fly in the ointment of many past Christmases. We might despise the artificiality of trying to be a close-knit bunch. We might loathe a corporate event where most people are just bent on getting drunk.

Whatever it is, grace can overcome. It starts with an attitude of trust and commitment to God. And as we adopt His way, we find we actually enjoy ourselves. As we jettison a worldly, self-centered view, we enter that gathering of people filled only with the good promises and presence of God in us.

That is enough. That is freedom. That is what makes merry. That is joy.

 copyright Barb Harwood

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. 

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” James 1:12-25

The Joy of Crying a River and Then Crossing God's Bridge Over It

I was in a coffee shop yesterday, and saw a sign on the wall that said, 

“Cry a river, build a bridge and get over it.”

It was one of those Linus-plays-Jingle-Bells-the Right-Way-for-Lucy moments!

Yet in reality, what happens for some people when it comes to serious issues is that they attempt the bridge-crossing without crying first.

Or, they cry and stew and fester on the shoreline of life, never overcoming anything.

Or, they skip directly to “get over it,” without even stopping to collect Monopoly money! (and paying the price later when unresolved flies in the ointment begin flying again).

These three extremes are debilitating in that they stunt, delay, impede and generally obliterate emotional and spiritual maturity and joy.

We live in an interesting dichotomy: either we over-nurture—coddle every whimper— or hard-line even real tragedies with a husky “just get over it.”

And certainly, not everything needs soul searching! 

Shallow, surface inconveniences and irritations do not warrant “stopping the presses!” Disagreements and opposing viewpoints do not constitute the need for a cry room. Opinions are a part of someone just as their hair color: each person is entitled to have them. We all have been tired, frustrated and snippy at times. We weren't perfect parents or children, so we need to cut some slack when we see other parents sincerely struggling to quiet their children in grocery stores and on airplanes. 

Facts of life such as these must be “gotten over,” and the sooner the better.

What does require our sincere time and attention is the heavy emotional baggage that we like to think we’ve jettisoned and are no longer lugging around. Ironically, our becoming so easily perturbed at lesser things is usually the residue from these unpacked bags.

So here’s the sad and slightly embarrassing truth: I’ve been crying a river over a few very specific issues for many years. At times they’ve faded into the background, or seemed like they could be successfully ignored. Often I did tell myself to simply “get over it.” But then life circumstances would dredge them up once again.

Bono, of the rock group U2, croons with insight when he sings,

“You’ve got to get yourself together;

 you’ve got stuck in a moment and now you can’t get out of it.”

And getting out of it requires the bridge, and then going across.

The entire process, beginning to end, naturally requires God. He will not abandon us to cry alone, nor force us to navigate over shark-infested waters ourselves.

The main thing that will happen on the bridge is the transition from our perspective of our self and others to God’s perspective. 

This de-programming, if you will, might necessitate spending differing lengths of time on various segments of the bridge. A first bridge crossing might take longer than a second. A second might take longer than the first due to the trauma involved. But we stay the course until we attain God’s peace and can say, in all sincerity, that we truly are “over it.”

This isn’t to say we won’t feel a tinge of residual tension from the old issue. We may always remember the lamenting and the battle to traverse the bridge. 

But we go forth living in the victory, as the apostle Paul himself models in Philippians 3 when he says, 

“...Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

This is yet another form of joy.

copyright Barb Harwood

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” James 1:2-6

A.W. Tozer on the Joy of the Reasonable Christian

A.W. Tozer, in his essay, A Word for Reason: Emotions in Control!, in a compilation of his writings titled, Tozer Speaks, Volume Two:

"I say 'Thank God' for the kind of enduring joy which comes to the believer whose emotional life is in the keeping of the Spirit. I stand with the dear child of God whose reason is sanctified and who refuses to be swept away from his mooring in the Word of God either by the latest popular vogue in religious fad or the ascendence of the most recent sensational personality in gospel circles. 
The child of God will not be swept away by fear nor feeling...." A.W. Tozer