Joy

Once again, I've been reading. This time it was the same book by Elizabeth George, but the topic was on a different fruit.

Joy.

What a big topic.

I don't have much time to discuss this topic today. (writing on Tuesday) Today I am home all by myself. Except for Jack. He's cruising around playing happily. My mom called this morning offered to take Addie to her music class this afternoon. Oh, and she would take Will too. I didn't argue.

I should be working on cleaning up the wreck of a house. But really, after I wrote all that about the mess around here on Monday, I got busy. Really busy. Til we went to bed Monday night our bedroom was spotless. The dining room was spotless. The kitchen was nearly spotless. The office had all the toys picked up. The living room was minus the clothes that needed folded and put away. All that's left of the mess is in Will's room, and I hope to tackle that yet today!!!

So. Joy.

I'm gonna hit the main points. The points in her book that really spoke to me. The points that made me realize, again, that I need to truly cultivate joy in my life.

Joy, like love, is a choice. I can choose to be joyful or I can choose to despair. The circumstances in our life back in January were such that we had to consciously make that choice. Were we going to be joyful that the judge saw fit to postpone our court date? Later that same day were we going to be joyful about the fact that our furnace had quit, the pipes had burst, and our house was flooded?

I'll be honest. It was a little tense around our motel room for a few hours. We were all in states of disbelief. First, court dates don't fail. Not very often, anyway. But ours did. Second, our house sits on a hill. There is no logical reason for a flood. But it flooded. Lots of damage. $25,000 worth of damage. Thankfully we have insurance!!

It wasn't until nearly bedtime when we were finally able to start seeing some good in our situation. It was at devotions that night when we just sat and discussed it all. We still had a slight ray of hope that Jack would truly come home with us. We still had a house to go home to...at least it hadn't burnt to the ground. We still had our two older children...and they were with us watching with wide eyes to see how we were going to handle all the bad news of the day.

Joy was slow in returning, but return it did. Somehow, someway, God broke through the clouds and helped us to realize that by not being joyful we were allowing satan to win the battle.

Not saying that it was easy. It wasn't. I still cried myself to sleep. :)
(The above was all written over a week ago. I am just now getting around to finishing up this post so I can see 'published' rather than 'draft'.)

Anyway, Elizabeth George sums it up in just a few little points. Actually there are only three main reasons that a Christian should be joyful at all times. According to EG anyway.

REASON #1 - OUR JOY IS PERMANENT. The only way that our joy can be taken from us is when we fail to walk in the Spirit. Ouch. Far too often I find myself very un-joyful. Why? Because I allow my circumstances to affect my joy. Shame on me. My joy is always to be in me. We have an "all-loving adn unchanging God" who makes our joy permanent.

REASON #2 - OUR JOY IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE. Remember that all-loving and unchanging God? He's always there. He is 'faithful and ever-present' as well as being 'all-loving and unchanging'. No matter what happens in my life, I can 'Rejoice in the Lord always' (Philippians 4:4). Why? Because He is always right here. Always ready to give me a triple dose of joy.

REASON #3 - OUR JOY IS ALSO INEXPRESSIBLE. (1 Peter 1:8) Joy in the Spirit is "joy beyond speech". Described as "a foretaste of the joy of heaven", Christian joy cannot be fully expressed or articulated. We can't explain why we experience joy when nothing in our life suggests we should be joyful.
(above paragraph taken straight from the book)

She goes on to list a few things that joy is NOT.
1. It is not dependent on circumstances, but on the spiritual realities of God's goodness, His unconditional love for us, and His ultimate victory over sin and darkness.

2. It is not based on our efforts, accomplishments, or willpower, but rather on the truth about our relationship with the Father through the Son.

3. It is not merely an emotion, but the result of choosing to look beyond what appears to be true in our life to what is true about our life in Christ.
(all taken directly from the book "A Woman's Walk With God")

Wow. That's all I have to say about that. I could make all manner of excuses as to why I find it hard to remain joyful throughout each and every day, but really it just boils down to one little (or actually huge) thing. My relationship with my Father is not as it should be.

She goes on to list five sources of our joy.
1. God Himself
2. God's salvation
3. God's promises
4. Christ's kingdom
5. Our future in Christ

Of course she expounds greatly on each of these sources, but I thought they could easily stand for themselves. Obviously, they all have our heavenly Father in common. I think we could safely say that He and He alone is the true source of joy.

After several more pages of expounding, she finally gets to the part that I like the best in each chapter. Practical ways to incorporate the fruit into my life. Perhaps I should already know. And I do. However, I take many reminders. One thing that I have learned about walking with Christ is that, for me, it doesn't come naturally. I have to be reminded over and over what is expected. I have to pray daily that God will help me. I have to lean wholly on the Father. I cannot on my own power be a joyful person. Oh, I can be happy, as long as things are going well. The children are perfectly obedient, the house is spotless, the windows are washed, the three daily meals are prepared first thing in the morning so I don't have to spend the whole day in the kitchen. Sometimes, okay, often, I find myself depending on those things to make my joyful. What a joke. If I depend on those things, I will never find true joy. Only through Jesus Christ can true joy come into my life.

Okay. On to the practical ways to 'cultivate joy' in my life. I'm gonnna copy these directly from the book. I could try to say it in summary form, but the way she states the points just makes sense.

1. Offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually - even when you don't feel like it (Hebrews 13:15). Through the power of the Holy Spirit, this act of thanksgiving transforms our pain into praise.
2. "Consider it all joy...when you encounter various trials," writes James (1:2). As I said earlier, let the very hindrances to joy become the soil out of which joy blossoms! That happens when we let life's hard times drive us nearer to the Lord, the only source of genuine joy and real hope.
3. Give thanks in everything (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Whatever is happening - good or bad - give thanks to God for His sovereignty, His perfect timing, His perfect plan, and His unconditional love.
4. Bless the Lord at all times (Psalm 34:1). Offer unceasingly the sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:15). The Spirit can - and will - use your praise to touch you with God's joy.
5. Focus on the reality of God's promises. Every time you open your Bible, read with a marker in hand and look for powerful promises that can change your outlook to one of joy. Go a step further and memorize those verses you like best and meditate on them.
6. Look up. Shift your eyes and your hopes away from your suffering and focus instead on the splendor of God (Psalm 121:1-2).
7. Obey God's command to be joyful always (1 Thessalonians 5:16). As author Jerry Bridges notes, "We are not to sit around waiting on our circumstances to make us joyful. We are commanded to be joyful always...we should continually be growing in joy."
8. Go to God to be filled with His joy whenever you need it.

She can step off my toes now. Anytime. Perhaps I'm the only one, but I let the silliest things get me down. The silliest things take away my joy. Okay. Maybe it wasn't true joy in the first place if it can be taken away. Maybe I need a reality check. Maybe I need to spend a little more time in prayer. Okay. That would be more than a maybe.

The reality is that if my joy can be taken by such trivial things (make that anything at all) I am not walking in the Spirit. It's a command in the Bible. "Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS." It doesn't say 'rejoice in the Lord when everything is going well' or 'rejoice in the Lord when you're on vacation'. It says ALWAYS. I think that would mean no matter what I am supposed to rejoice. Pretty sure about that actually.

I have some drastic changes to make. Starting now.

This all reminds me of when we were in Russia. Again. Seems like everything reminds me of that five week span. Anyway.

Our house had flooded. Court had fallen through. Updates on our house project were coming every day. "The ceiling is taken down. The walls are torn out. The woodwork is gone. You might have to buy all new furniture. The picture albums are ruined, but the pictures themselves were fine after being taken out of the albums. The floors have to be replaced. It's going to need completely repainted. What colors do you want? This place is a wreck. Insurance won't cover any electrical work that is done (after it was already done :). It got to the point that we hesitated to check e-mail in the morning. We were scared to answer the phone when it rang. Only a few people had our number and they only called when there was bad news to pass on.

And then we received a picture in our in-box one morning. Some friends had been working at our house and snapped a picture for us. We laughed. But really? It made me stop and think.

See what I'm saying? Right there in the midst of the wreck is a Bible verse. "In everything give thanks." 1 Thessalonians 5:18. As hard as it was, we knew that we had to be thankful. And of course we had tons to be thankful for. We had two children already. We still had a house to go home to, it was just a disaster at the time. We had family and friends who were going far beyond the second mile to work on our house.

That verse had to be removed from the wall before the painting got done. But. I bought some more wall letters. And that verse is right back up there again. I considered changing the verse, but not for long.

Who doesn't need a reminder to give thanks for everything?

Maybe you don't. But I sure do.

Love

Here I go again. Expounding on a book written by Elizabeth George. This time the book is called "A Woman's Walk with God". She takes the fruits of the spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control - and writes an entire chapter on each attribute.

One of the first sentences that I read really stepped on my toes. Okay. Make that a paragraph. It's taken off page 11.

"As you and I walk together through God's list of the fruit He deserves in our life, we'll look not only at their beauty and bounty but also at each individual fruit. But we must never forget that all nine fruit stand together: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control make up our walk with God. They are like a string of Christmas lights - there is one string with many lights that, when plugged into the electrical socket, all light up at once. However, if one bulb goes out, the entire string goes out. That's how God's fruit is borne in our lives. No one of them can be missing, and all must be evident to be God's fruit."

Ouch. Why is it that I forget that every single one of those must be present if I want to be a woman who lives completely for God?

It's actually very obvious. I already knew that I must have all of those active in my life all at the same time, but I tend to think that I can leave one out for a few hours and still be considered a woman of God.

Not true. So not true.

The first whole chapter is on love. That word is a frequent word in the Bible.

One whole chapter is devoted to it in fact. 1 Corinthians 13. 'Love' is a tall order.

Elizabeth George has a few principles listed to help the reader better understand what love really is.

1. Love is an act of the will. In other words I can choose to love or I can choose to not love. In the words of Dr. George Sweeting, "Love is work. It demans a continuous, twenty-four hour a day commitment." Only through God's grace can we have that kind of love for all around us.

2. Love is action - not just words. Everything I do during the day should be an act of love for my family. You know the cleaning I don't particularly enjoy? The cooking that isn't my very favorite, but must be done three times a day? The laundry that I truly do enjoy...especially when I can see it flapping in the breeze? Each of those are acts of love....IF I do it all with a smile on my face, that is.

3. Love reaches out to the unlovely. Pretty self-explanatory. It's so easy to show our love to those who are happy, content, etc., but send me a person who is whiny and grouchy with life in general and I have a tougher time showing much love. Why is that? Maybe because I think that if a person is just going to whine anyway I don't need to waste any time on them. Shame on me. It could be that the person who whines just simply needs someone to show them a little of God's love.

4. We need God to help us love. That's pretty obvious. Each and every morning I need to ask God to help me love. Help me love completely and help me love unconditionally. It's a struggle for me sometimes. I know that I am required to love my children even when they are doing the exact opposite of what I have asked of them. I know it's a sin to hold a grudge. And yet I find myself doing it anyway on occasion. There is no excuse. God loves me unconditionally and thus I must love others unconditionally....with HIS help.

5. Love expects nothing in return. Mmm-hmmm. Nothing. Just because I slave away in the kitchen for hours every day doesn't mean that my family should treat me any different. John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you." No if's, and's, or but's in that verse. Jesus says I must love everyone and so I must. He says nothing about expecting to get great accolades if I do as He commands.
(Bold print and italics taken directly from the book.)

Love is simply the sacrifice of self. (Definition from the book.) It takes time. It takes patience. It takes giving of myself even when I feel like there is absolutely nothing left to give. It takes a deep-rooted connection to the giver of love....Jesus Christ.

We'll end this little lecture to me with a list that is in the book, 'A Woman's Walk with God'.

1. Begin loving the people God puts in your path by first loving those people at home. As the saying goes, 'What you are at home is what you are!' So BE a woman who walks in God's love....at home.

2. Go to God throughout the day for a fresh supply of His love to share. At the first hint of waning love, look to the Lord of love.

3. Remember that your assignment is to serve (Galatians 5:13).

4. Remember Jesus, who "did not come to be served, but to SERVE, and to GIVE His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28, emphasis added).

There you have it. The first fruit of the spirit.

LOVE.

Let's step away from the computer and pass it on! :)