When Stephen asked me if I was prepared to kick-off the December topic of redefining joy, my response was, "Absolutely." And to be fair, I was ready. Actually, am ready, obviously, because, well, here we are. But if I am honest, I am not in the most joyous of seasons. And any time in the past week that I would ponder what to write in this post, I would find myself needing to redefine joy in my own life. Consequently, the majority of this post is going to be my journey, with what I hope will be an applicable bit of practicality for everyone at the end.
Lately, Mike Tyson has been practicing his right hook, and it seems as if my life has been holding the bag.
"But surely," I tell myself, "this is an over exaggeration." And it is. Unlike Prison Mike from The Office, I have not had a hard life. When I was a kid, my family went through some rough times, but we came out of them. I have slept on a mattress on the floor of an office building, but never out on the streets. I have told my wife goodbye before surgery, not knowing if I would see her again, but I have not had to live out that goodbye. I have spent a breathless minute wondering if my child would die before my eyes, but I have never buried my child. I've watched my kids go through sickness, but the run-of-the-mill stuff. I've never watched one of my own go through a nightmare like cystic fibrosis or cancer.
I could go on and on with these examples. And so, when I say "I am not in the most joyous of seasons," I fully understand that there are people - many people - who would take my struggles over their own in a heartbeat.
But land sakes does it feel like the joy has been sucked out of everything lately. Two of my grandfathers passed away within weeks of each other. One from dementia complications and one from lung cancer. At the memorial for one, all of us shared memories and half of us shared the flu. Thanksgiving was spent alone and in beds. At one point, our game room looked like the Bucket household from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, except with four kids instead of four elderly folks.
During that week, we also had to drop $2,000 on our family vehicle, which was both an unexpected and an uninvited surprise that has ramifications on our Christmas and life in general. On Thanksgiving morning, we discovered that our refrigerator had been leaking and I spent the days after the holiday ripping out flooring and a cabinet - with the flu. Since then, life and its busyness has also managed to kill our traditions for decorating for Christmas.
My two favorite holidays of the entire year, and so far both have been obliterated by death, sickness, financial struggle, and strife.
And then, like a stealth bomber, comes a tune as uninvited as my mechanic bill, summoned from my more-holy subconscious self: "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice." You know the one. It is likely born out of Philippians 4:4, since the lyrics are kind of identical.
And so I sit back and think, "Yeah, yeah, there is much to be joyous about and joy comes from the Lord and I know this and have known it and will be knowing it from here until eternity." But sometimes that joy doesn't carryover into the oppressiveness of the present. Unfortunately, First Thessalonians 5:16 doesn't allow for my kind of flippant been-there-done-that kind of excuse. It won't even let me say, "Right, there is much to joy about in the Lord, but the rest of this is garbage." Paul merely says: "Rejoice evermore." That is a straightforward statement.
I googled the etymology of rejoice, because I couldn't figure out how Paul expected me to "always rejoice" myself (Young's Literal Translation - not mine, it is a genuine translation). What I discovered has helped change my outlook, and perhaps it will help you as well.
The word rejoice comes from the French word joir. This word means to experience joy. The prefix re- simply means to do something again. Initially, the word rejoice was used differently than how we use it today. Oxford dictionary lists the archaic definition as: "to cause joy to." As in, "someone is sad, and I am going to rejoice them." That is, cause them to experience joy again.
And this is what God has done, is doing, and will do, continually: cause His children to experience joy again. I read back on my past few weeks and in a simple change of perspective can see blessings instead of stresses. I can find joy in the struggle. I can rejoice.
And maybe you are going through waters that make my storms look like sunshine and your joy has been cast to the depths. Would you dare to take comfort in knowing that Christ can cause you to experience joy again?
Perhaps, at least in general, joy isn't a constant. Maybe part of our despair is in our attempts to be constantly joyous. After all, if the Bible tells us to "weep with them who weep" (Rom. 12:15), there must a time for it. So maybe the greatest part of joy is the knowledge that when despair and misery have had their say, Christ Himself will rejoice us again.
Don't take my word for it, take His. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus reads from Isaiah 61: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
He then tells the listeners that He is the One to whom this passage is referring. And this is why Paul tells us to rejoice in the Lord always, because Christ was sent to heal our broken hearts. This is why we reexperience joy over and again because as our hearts break, the Great Physician is faithful to bind them up.
Take heart and be of good cheer. Rejoice evermore.
No comments:
Post a Comment