Have you ever noticed that not all good news floods your life with joy? Sometimes good news brings trepidation, anxiety, concern, or questions.
Sometimes good news brings change, and for some, change causes apprehension, which haunts the joy that the news intended to have. For example, the news of each of my pregnancies carried joy wrapped in anxiety whether or not I would meet my child.
And this is the thing about joy: joy and suffering do not preclude one another. In fact, it’s fully possible to experience joy while suffering, and it’s fully possible to experience suffering and know indescribable joy.
We shouldn’t live this life one where one or the other overshadow each other. They live side by side, at times simultaneously and at other times alternating. But when we try to keep suffering separate from joy, we lose authenticity within ourselves.
Suffering happens. It’s part of growing as a Christian. But we don’t have to be afraid of it.
Foundational knowledge of joy starts with understanding that God is joyous and that joy is fruit. Joy is not a feeling, although it brings emotions. To broaden our understanding of joy we need to expand our understanding of the gospel news.
Luke 2:10, “And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” The Israelites were a chosen people, destined to show God’s rescue of the world, but they themselves needed rescuing.
It’s this type of good news that joy finds its ability to live side by side with sorrow. And because of the joy that the good news brings, we don’t have to live in acute suffering because Jesus himself takes it and carries it for us.
In Simply Good News by N. T. Wright, we read, “We can be, and we are called to be, good-news people–people who themselves are being renewed by the good news, people through whom the good news is bringing healing and hope to the world at whatever level.”
This is how joy and sorrow live side by side. It’s this understanding of the true meaning of the gospel, which isn’t just to save you from eternal damnation, but it’s also so that you live transformed lives choosing “right-living” so that you can put the world to rights, right where you live.
We get to become good news people, living transformed by belief in the gospel, recruited for God image-bearing work, justified or “put right” by Christ’s death and resurrection so that we can be “putting right” people for the world. We’re healed people whom God brings healing to the world.
This gospel, this understanding of the gospel, is joy unspeakable. It’s joy that sustains us through devastation, suffering, and disappointments because our foundation is God’s truth that he is full of immeasurable love for you and me.
This news should bring joy that swells in our hearts so that we shout it from the rooftops. It enables us to live 2 Corinthians 4:7-9: hard pressed, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not despairing. Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down, but not destroyed.
Let’s let the good news of the gospel do it’s work within us. It transforms us as we submit to the work of the Holy Spirit. And as we trust God’s heart for us we understand the power of his joy.
The Takeaway
Read Colossians for one or two or more weeks. Reading a book over and over reveals new truth each time you read through it. Ponder the truth found in it for living out the gospel.
I bought fresh blueberries the other day. They tasted a bit tart at first, but then gave way to sweetness. Living with joy in our lives is a little like eating blueberries. It can be a bit sour as we choose joy in the midst of harrowing circumstances. But as we obey, God’s joy overflows into our hearts and brings an indescribable sweetness.
Galatians 5:22 gives us list of fruit of the Spirit and joy comes right after love. Love motivates and joy sustains. At the moment, I’m covered in snowdrifts and spring with its green growing plants seems so far away.
It’s easy to judge our lives based on what our physical eyes see and then feel disappointed when we don’t see what we want to see. But much of the good that comes out of our lives happens below the surface of what our eyes see. That’s because it’s in ours hearts where change occurs as we yield to the Holy Spirit.
In my flower bed, I have wild-growing yarrow. It’s no respecter of boundaries and creeps into my grass. Imagine if we allowed joy full range into all areas of our lives? The difficulties and the pleasures.
To rejoice when we’re overcome with sorrow tastes bitter, but the bitter turns sweet as we choose joy. But this is the trick–we grow frustrated when we attempt to conjure it up in our own strength. It doesn’t work because it feels fake. And then we develop a wrong belief about it because it’s tainted by our own effort and strength.
But God is full of joy and delights to share it with us. He is joyous and he provides all we need for this life in the thin place. But how do we grow joy in our lives? How do we stop relying on ourselves for it and letting our circumstances dictate it?
When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, we’re grafted into God’s family. We become part of his family tree. And as we stay attached to the vine and trust God’s process of transformation, we will bear fruit. Even when it seems like no growth takes place. Even when life is bitter.
John 15:1-17 tells us how to have complete joy and that’s by abiding in Jesus. It’s absorbing all the nutrients and allowing him to prune us. It’s yielding to the growth process by remaining in him.
The key to growing this fruit in your life is remaining in Christ. Allow him to be the gardener of your heart and stay close to him as he grows you. We do not drift into maturity. We determine to cooperate with the power of God that is within us on our way to maturity.
It’s in this place of abiding, that we find the most complete joy we could ever know. Jesus asks us to obey, to remain in him, and to love. As we do these three things his joy becomes complete and we know complete joy.
Life is full of troubles, agonies, and sorrows. It’s also full of beauty, fun, and laughter. To live life with joy, we must cultivate its fruit in our lives. As we abide in Christ, we produce fruit. We will also experience pruning so that we produce even more.
I know what it’s like to feel lost amidst the gray dark days of life. We can practice joy by focusing on God’s heart for us. Then by walking with him in that thin place of abundance.
Choosing joy might taste bitter at first, but persist in it. You will see God turn the bitter into sweet and it will bolster your heart.
You can be the brightest gift to those around you because of the joy that’s within you. Cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit to grow you, to guide you, and to produce joy. Rejoice! And again I say Rejoice!
As you obey the Lord, you remain in his love, and as you remain in his love, your joy grows complete. Oh how he loves you!
The Takeaway
Joy can be defined as the source of delight.
Read John 15:1-17 asking the Holy Spirit for fresh new insights.
Write Galatians 5:22 on a notecard and paste it somewhere to remind you to remain in the vine.
Choose joy. Delight in God’s goodness, kindness, love, joy, and peace.
The lament arc takes us from despair to release to hope and to praise because it allows for the full expression of emotions this life creates. Our responses to our life experiences can drive us towards God but when we tuck our emotions into a chest in the depths of the attic we rob ourselves of a deeper authenticity with Christ.
As we explore the lost language of lament, we discover a freedom in approaching God to receive the grace he longs to bestow. Our hearts swell with faith, hope and love as we realize that God gave us this language to communicate with him and that he longs to hear our hearts.
We cannot believe that lament is merely a venting session of all the ugly that hides in our heart. Venting the full breadth of our emotions without biblical exhortation results in a gossipy, negative view of our struggles and the people in it.
I’ve been a journal-er for numerous years, and several years ago as I read through an old journal, I cringed at the judgmental, negative, self-righteous way I sounded. I had the full expression of my emotions and crying out to God for help written in black and white, but the confession of trust, the petition for help, and any type of praise was noticeably absent.
My lament felt despairing rather than hopeful.
My penned words made me want to cast that journal in the nearest burn pile.
Instead, it’s tucked into the bookshelf, flat against the back with other books placed in front of it, spines lined up like little soldiers in a row. I didn’t throw it away because it’s my reminder of the importance of learning the biblical lament.
Praise is the final piece in the biblical lament.
We read, “Praise the Lord” or “Bless the Lord” or “I will offer my praise in the assembly” and we wonder how can that be possible when our lives fall apart.
Part of the biblical lament is preaching to your own soul. And in the praising God for his goodness because he’s faithful and kind and true, we minister to our own hearts.
Let’s read David’s word in Psalm 31:19-24
“Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues. Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help. Love the Lord, all you saints! The Lord preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!”
David ends his lament with words of praise. He praises God for his abundant goodness and reminds himself to keep fearing the Lord and finding refuge in him.
Do you need this reminder? It’s far too easy to let your circumstances dictate your responses, but what if the next time life tried to melt your heart like wax and cause you to place your fear in the unknowns of “what if”, you tried praise?
One of the Hebrew words for praise is Towdah and it renders as a “confession of thanks and praise for what God is going to do.” We cannot confuse what we wish God to do based on our agenda, but we must base our praise on what God is going to do because of his character.
His character is solid. He doesn’t forsake you because he is faithful. He brings light to your darkness because he is light. He gives good gifts because he is a good Father. He brings you strength because he is full of joy.
Praising God based on his character is what allows our heart to grab hold of courage. Praising God in our lament reminds us that God is God and we are not and that the whole world rests in his hands and on his shoulders. Not ours.
As we surrender control over the outcome of our situations, we turn to the language of biblical lament and we find hope and courage for our weary hearts.
The Takeaway
Ending our lament with praise points our hearts to our good, good Father and fills us with hope.
Read Psalm 31 and use it as a model of lament in your current situation. Start with the cry, move into expression of pain, confess your trust, petition God to act on your behalf, and then praise him for what he is able to do.
