“The joy of the LORD is your strength,” Nehemiah 8:10 says.
When we’re weak, joy makes life better, for it is the perspective we need, and that joy comes from a humble, intentional gratitude. Humility, intentionality, gratitude—three different approaches and strategies, three different ways there.
If we have strength enough when we’re weak, we search and keep searching for the right way back to joy.
“Joy comes in the morning,” even after weeping lament the previous night, Psalm 30:5 tells us. Almost as if reading my life, this truth has permeated my life dozens, if not hundreds, of times. Faith enough to be expectant to rise is all God needs to bless us with a fresh lifegiving perspective.
Grief puts us in touch with a suffering world and it piques the sensibilities of our compassionate empathy—a huge strength we receive for ourselves even as we connect with another’s suffering.
A little stanza on JOY:
At the rustle of the leaves, joy.
Gentle wafting breeze, joy.
Our limits when accepted, joy.
Peace and hope intercepted—joy.
Joy as a fortifier. With joy come peace and hope, in spite of our circumstances, as we believe for the best in advance of things turning out right.
Biblically, is it possible to experience joy in every circumstance? I don’t think that’s always the case, BUT James commends us to:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,
when you face trials of many kinds…” (James 1:2)
Even as we contemplate that joy may be possible even if it’s out of reach, we strive gently toward that goal—to be at one with joy again.
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